It all started with the random ‘Dashcam Unavailable’ errors a few months ago. I thought I was having the SW issue that I read about online but after a couple of new releases my issue wasn’t going away. Because my USB drive, at the time, was working on my PC I thought I had a USB issue on my 2018 Tesla model 3. Just in case, I also bought a new micro SD card and USB adapter that was recommended somewhere for Tesla dashcams. When that also didn’t work 100% (drive formatted correctly in the car but no footage would save), I thought for sure that I had a bad USB port. I set an at home appt, tech comes out and tries a known-good USB and has no problems… I THEN tried my new micro SD/adapter combo on my PC and it wouldn’t read there either! I felt really stupid for not checking it on my PC. I was also pissed that I got some bad advice. FYI – when I used a different USB adapter, I was able to read the micro SD on my PC and found that the Tesla did format the card, but there was no footage on it. I thought it was strange that it could be formatted, but not written to.
From my new research, any type of memory being used for dashcams, security cams, sentry, or anything that is constantly writing/re-writing should be rated as ‘Endurance’. The drives sold by Tesla are NOT and they will fail much sooner.
Many recommend the SSD drives, but they are not rated for the range of temps that occur inside of a Tesla. They also require a lot more power. For these reasons I decided to stay away from them.
The best bang for the buck is currently an endurance-type micro SD card and an adapter. Maybe it was just me, but the recommended adapter didn’t work.
Bottom line, here is what I bought and is currently working fine:
Micro SD: https://amzn.to/3ViYZ77 (the adapter that comes with this card DID NOT work for me)
USB adapter: https://amzn.to/3STGVPn This can also be used to copy video to your phone and works with SD and micro-SD.
From my new research, any type of memory being used for dashcams, security cams, sentry, or anything that is constantly writing/re-writing should be rated as ‘Endurance’. The drives sold by Tesla are NOT and they will fail much sooner.
Many recommend the SSD drives, but they are not rated for the range of temps that occur inside of a Tesla. They also require a lot more power. For these reasons I decided to stay away from them.
The best bang for the buck is currently an endurance-type micro SD card and an adapter. Maybe it was just me, but the recommended adapter didn’t work.
Bottom line, here is what I bought and is currently working fine:
Micro SD: https://amzn.to/3ViYZ77 (the adapter that comes with this card DID NOT work for me)
USB adapter: https://amzn.to/3STGVPn This can also be used to copy video to your phone and works with SD and micro-SD.
