External Hard Drive for music?

I'm wondering if there's a trick to getting a USB hard drive to connect to a 2014 Maxima. I've plugged it in, and it says, "Check USB." Doesn't seem to recognize it. It's a 1TB hard drive. I'd really like to be able to have my whole collection at fingertips. A single iPod doesn't allow that. I guess I could upload everything to Google Play, and use my phone, but I was thinking this would be doable.