I have used a few different solutions. USB thumb drives that are sandisk higher end, fast ones... they fail as they are not meant for tons of read/write like a security system type of monitoring, like sentry and dashcam.
This is simply not supported by any technical data or specs.
The tesla system does not write especially quickly, nor write nearly as much data as the multiple-4k-dashcam systems those "endurance" type drives are meant for.
The math on this has been posted repeatedly in various dashcam threads if you wish to find it.... or if you wish to do it yourself to see this is true- the car only writes at 2 megs per second, and only writes about 7.2GB per hour for computing life-cycle of storage.
A 128GB regular good quality USB key should last 5-10
years in normal dashcam/sentry use based on the the typical rated life of such a device.... (more toward 5 if you run Sentry 24/7, more toward 10 or more if it's a more typical 8-9 hours for time at work and a drive to/from)
Indeed, as mentioned, the two devices Tesla specifically recommends in the owners manual are just regular, good quality, USB keys. I've been using the Samsung one (a 128GB version) since October 2018 with 100% reliability.
SDcards add an extra point of failure (the USB to SDcard adapter)-and we've had many a folk report that's exactly what they had fail on em and had to replace.... though certainly if you have some reason you [B}need[/B] your saved dashcam footage to last 20 years instead of just 5-10 year on the same device, an endurance SDcard is the way to go.
