Is it possible to use Arduino and a BT shield to store files on a external hard drive?
If you can build a sata interface on your shield, why not ?
It is certainly possible, whether it is practical to try and implement, I don't know.
An arduino is going to have trouble providing and receiving the data at the rate that a hard disk will accept. I don't know how slow it is possible to run them.
An Arduino with BT and USB host capability might run an external HD with USB interface.
I guess it would be cheating to stick a BT dongle on a laptop and use that run the HD? 
Sorry, best I've done is SD.
MattTuck:
Is it possible to use Arduino and a BT shield to store files on a external hard drive?
I would say no.
You would need to have a Bluetooth interface to the HD do you have that?
If not then something like the HD running off a Raspberry Pi with a BT dongle might work.
Not for you
Did you see any Bluetooth HDs on Sparkfun or Adafruit ?
Why?
If they can't do it what chance do you think you have if you are asking if it is possible?
Does that sound like a question someone would ask if they hzd more expertise than Spafkfun or Adafruit?
It is a completely reasonable and fair question. Unfortunately the answer is no if it is not available as a product right now. If you can find
it then you'll have your answer.
I know someone who could do it in 10 minutes or less: Cloe O'Bryan.
I actually have USB HD adapters. Got mine through Geeks.Com but Tiger Direct sells them too.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=3770&srkey=usb%20hard%20drive%20adapter
That might put HD within reach of a Mega ADK...
Think how much overhead the SD card library adds to an Arduino - and it can only work with 8.3 filenames and other restrictions.
For all practical purposes there is no way an Arduino (apart from a Yun perhaps) could access a hard disk.
And what would be the point. You can easily get multi-gigabyte SD Cards. What possible use could an Arduino with 0.000 002 GB of SRAM be to a 500GB hard disk - or vice versa.
...R
SD cards have an MCU that supports DOS FAT is why Arduino only uses DOS FAT with them.
It's more a matter of access speed and bus.
I did run IDE on 4 to 10 MHz 8088's once we got IDE drives. Speed doesn't have to be incredible.
You can USB an HD, the drive electronics handles the buffering. It's probably simpler than it used to be.
The thing is that it just seems like a waste to hook an AVR to an HD, like putting a sidecar on a moped.
A Due, Yun or Galileo is justified.
Don't you need a USB HOST shield to run a HD fron an arduino ?
Was it an ALTAIR 8800 ?
Is it important that you access the hard drive directly? As soon as you introduce a PC between the Arduino and the hard drive, the problem becomes much simpler to solve. If you can find/write an Arduino NFS or SMB client, it would also be easy to add a network interface and access network attached storage, windows file shares, NFS shared drives etc.
GoForSmoke:
SD cards have an MCU that supports DOS FAT is why Arduino only uses DOS FAT with them.
... and DOS FAT is simple compared to NTFS or EXT3 or whatever system is now used on hard disks.
...R
raschemmel:
Don't you need a USB HOST shield to run a HD fron an arduino ?Was it an ALTAIR 8800 ?
You do if you're going to 'face the HD through a USB adapter!
Altair ran 8080. He did call that the 8800, didn't he? Almost the first commercial PC?
Isn't that the first company that Gates took down? I'd say rightfully so but it's the first time I know of where someone else did most of the work and Bill got most of the money (because the lawyer was hired by his father).
Well, okay, the lawyer may have gotten most of the money but the talent got the least. And I forget that guy's name so see how that works, I don't curse his name at least once a year.
The 8088's for me started in Jan 1986 when the IBM clones and clone parts hit the fests.
The difference between doing your own tech and not was spending less than half sticker price or not.
Robin2:
GoForSmoke:
SD cards have an MCU that supports DOS FAT is why Arduino only uses DOS FAT with them.... and DOS FAT is simple compared to NTFS or EXT3 or whatever system is now used on hard disks.
...R
Believe it or not, you can format a drive however you like and use it on most PC operating systems.
I have a media player that uses FAT32. The same drive with USB adapter works on my PC.
I did mention that putting a hard drive on an AVR does not make sense?
It may be possible, but why bother? A server should have more RAM than the controller board!
I did mention that putting a hard drive on an AVR does not make sense?
It may be possible, but why bother? A server should have more RAM than the controller board!
Ok, I don't get it. How do you do that ? [Arduino]<===>[server]
Can you show a block diagram that includes all the required components between the two ?
I assume the idea you are describing revolves around an Ethernet Shield . Is that correct ? (or are there other components rquired ?)
Possibly a Mega ADK which has USB host built in, a USB HD adapter and a hard drive.
Adapters just available at Tiger Direct above. I have one, but from Geeks. they work. $20 + shipping.
You don't believe that hard drives can no longer run FAT do you?
Did I mention it would be slower than with a PC? Or that it wouldn't make sense? Pretty sure I did.
Reminder: (The OP is MattTuck).
I've lost track of who you are addressing.
We haven't heard from the OP in EONs so I don't know what's up.
It's been 26 hours. I don't blink that fast.
I use Reply# count: We are up to 16 with no response from the OP. Who doesn't check their email on a Saturday ?
Maybe he didn't turn on Notify .
When I first read the post the first question that came to mind is "Whose hard drive does he want to access wirelessly and does he mean with or without their knowledge ?"
The second question was "Ok , if it's his hard drive , WHY does he need to access it and EXACTLY WHAT does he need to do in terms of file transfer ? (WHAT file types and sizes ?) (what distance range?) (What data transfer speed ?)
GoForSmoke:
Believe it or not, you can format a drive however you like and use it on most PC operating systems.
I know that.
Why would you bother to format it with an out of date system just so you could read it with an Arduino ???
...R
He didn't say why.
Maybe wants to sort data and doesn't know about indexing. Or something totally different.
You can pick up smaller refurb drives for a song if you shop around.
But then you can pick up enough to run them on cheap too.
Some of what makes AVR and SD go so well are similar size and low power requirements.