# How to play DSD music on flash drive in PST SACD **URL:** \ **Category:** Transports\ **Created:** [June 11, 2025, 2:12am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904 "2025-06-11T02:12:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![audio5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@audio5](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/audio5)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 2:12am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/1 "2025-06-11T02:12:34Z")
I need help to figure it out how to play HD music down loaded 256DSD on USB flash drive from HDTT site. 1-I clicked on download to open files, selected all and dropped it to USB flash drive. 2-put flash dive on front USB port of PST, and screen showed no disc found. 3- I am not sure it is me or system issue, i can play cd/Sacd w/o any issue. 4-DS Dac is connected via I2S cable. Best, Syed ---
**Author:** ![jerryd6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jerryd6](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/jerryd6)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 2:42am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/2 "2025-06-11T02:42:40Z")
If I recall correctly you need to go into the menu and select for USB playback. I can’t give the steps to get to the correct sub menu since I haven’t done this in a good while, but the manual should explain it. ---
**Author:** ![audio5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@audio5](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/audio5)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 2:49am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/3 "2025-06-11T02:49:17Z")
I have read page7 of manual, it is not helpful. ---
**Author:** ![tomhail](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/tomhail/32/40944_2.png) [@tomhail](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/tomhail)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 2:50am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/4 "2025-06-11T02:50:24Z")
I might be misremembering, but I thought Paul said somewhere a while back that the USB interface will not play DSD files. For troubleshooting purposes, I suggest putting FLAC files on the USB and first see if they play - then try to play the DSD files. If flac works but DSD doesn’t, then it might just be that my memory was correct. ---
**Author:** ![tomhail](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/tomhail/32/40944_2.png) [@tomhail](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/tomhail)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 2:52am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/5 "2025-06-11T02:52:05Z")
OK, so I found this: [PST USB Highest DSD Rate?](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/pst-usb-highest-dsd-rate/28999) DSD 128 is the highest rate via USB. Not sure that helps, but it’s something. ---
**Author:** ![tomhail](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/tomhail/32/40944_2.png) [@tomhail](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/tomhail)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 2:59am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/6 "2025-06-11T02:59:21Z")
and I found one more mention of USB drive and PST playback: [SACD Transport software update - #111 by Terrence](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/sacd-transport-software-update/21542/111) ---
**Author:** ![adifferentpaul](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/adifferentpaul/32/282181_2.png) [@adifferentpaul](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/adifferentpaul)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 5:01am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/7 "2025-06-11T05:01:58Z")
1. I would recommend downloading to your computer’s hard drive and not rely on a usb flash drive as the “main” location for a dsd download. Flash drives do fail, and if you have the files stored on a hard drive, you can always re-copy the files to a flash drive later. 2. I do believe dsd files are limited to dsd64. While it is possible that it is now dsd128, I tried at a time when only dsd64 would work. 3. the music MUST be in the root directory of the flash drive. In other words, you cannot create a directory called “The Beatles” and then a sub directory for the various albums, as the sacd transport will not find the files 4. after downloading the zip file with the music, you do have to unzip (extract) the file from windows explorer, and copy those extracted files to the root directory of the usb flash drive ---
**Author:** ![audio5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@audio5](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/audio5)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 12:10pm UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/8 "2025-06-13T12:10:14Z")
Thank you, I am learning through this forum. instead of using Samsung 256 flash drive(exFat) ,i purchased PNC 32 GB (FAT32),and i was able to play DSD files upto128K. so FAT 32 is buzzword. I also downloaded other files but due to root directory issues it was not playable. ---
**Author:** ![tomhail](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/tomhail/32/40944_2.png) [@tomhail](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/tomhail)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 1:45pm UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/9 "2025-06-13T13:45:51Z")
Glad to hear you found a workaround. That Samsung drive can be re-formatted to FAT32 so perhaps you can still use it. Look up how to format a USB drive to FAT32 for your operating system (MacOS or Windows) it should be rather straight forward. ---
**Author:** ![adifferentpaul](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/adifferentpaul/32/282181_2.png) [@adifferentpaul](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/adifferentpaul)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 3:49pm UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/10 "2025-06-13T15:49:28Z")
Hopefully you can get them to play ---
**Author:** ![audio5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@audio5](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/audio5)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2025, 2:01am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/11 "2025-06-14T02:01:50Z")
I have Samsung128 GB usb flash drive ,I tried to reformat it to FAT 32,there was no option except exFat. I just google KensingtonPNC Fat 32 Flash drive, and I am able to play upto 128K resolution.? Question: How to higher resolution DSD files like 256KDSD. ---
**Author:** ![tomhail](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/tomhail/32/40944_2.png) [@tomhail](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/tomhail)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2025, 2:09am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/12 "2025-06-14T02:09:08Z")
There is a free utility called Rufus ( [Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way](https://rufus.ie/en/) ) that formats USB drives. It is a Windows utility and is very reputable in the IT world. I think the limit for MKII is DSD 128, but you can try. ---
**Author:** ![adifferentpaul](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/adifferentpaul/32/282181_2.png) [@adifferentpaul](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/adifferentpaul)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2025, 5:21am UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/13 "2025-06-14T05:21:10Z")
You can’t do dsd256 from a flash drive with that transport ---
**Author:** ![tomhail](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.psaudio.com/tomhail/32/40944_2.png) [@tomhail](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/tomhail)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2025, 1:21pm UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/14 "2025-06-14T13:21:27Z")
Correction, I should have said PST, not MKII. ---
**Author:** ![audio5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@audio5](https://forum.psaudio.com/u/audio5)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 11:31pm UTC](https://forum.psaudio.com/t/how-to-play-dsd-music-on-flash-drive-in-pst-sacd/41904/15 "2025-06-15T23:31:52Z")
Thank you all.