@likelylad (Stephen) posted a new topic, subject "Xhat & USB Hard drive". It read:

   Hey all was thinking of getting a harddrive loaded with roms and putting it into the picade…
    
    my questions are.
    
      * will the Xhat power a hard drive?
    
      * will the retropi pull roms from the images on the hard drive?
    
    
    
    
    Cheers

To which @alphanumeric (Kerry Waterfield) replied

    As to the first question, I think its more of a question of whether the Pi can supply enough current to drive the hard drive. Its limited to 1.2 total Amps across the 4 USB ports. The Pi 4B anyway.
    
    https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/faqs/#pi-power

@likelylad (Stephen) replied

    thanks once again ill give it a try and see what happens!!

After which, @likelylad (Stephen) added

    looks like the pi cant handle the power output to run both the screen and harddrive as the picade just flicks on and off with both plugged in!!

Then @alphanumeric (Kerry Waterfield) said

    It may not be ideal, but you could power the display separately. Remove the USB cable going from the display to the Pi's USB port, and replace it with a Pi Micro USB power supply. Try it as a test, it will give you ~ 1 more amp to play with. This is assuming 1.2A is enough to drive the hard drive.

So @likelylad (Stephen) replied

    Ill give it a try. thanks again!! :)

Then @iOtero (iOtero) said

    To my Raspberry pi 4 (with the fan shim) i have connected a 2.5 "and 2TB disk through the USB3 port without any problem. It works perfectly without any extra power.  
    I say this in case someone can serve as a reference.


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