Help with Sentry/Music SSD USB?

[BayBulk]

Hi All -

I see there has been a lot of discussion of what the best option is for recording with sentry mode. Is this debate settled?

I am looking to have a device that can both record sentry, Dashcam and play music. I have spotify premium now and connect to bluetooth and it has been fine but want to explore having a library on a device so I can have more control (still figuring out this out.) People have talked about doing a "partition" but not sure how that works. Advice?

What's the best solution? USB or SSD? and what products do you guys recommend?

-Mark

 

[woodisgood]

I have a 128gb SSD (Kingston I think) with a SATA to USB cable. Works great. Partition process as in this video:

I can’t say if SSD is superior to USB stick but I caught a nice deal on the SSD and figured it was more useful to me.

 

[BayBulk]

Thanks for the quick response. I will check it out.

 

[Tam]

...USB or SSD...

I am not sure SSD speed is of any advantage currently because the USB port is 2.0, not USB-C.

However, SSD speed is great to cut down the wait time from your computer to your SSD.

There are 2 USB ports so you can use 1 for music and 1 for sentry/Dash Cam.

Some needs one for charging and the other one for 2 other functions. In this case, you need to partition 1 drive into 2: 1 for music and 1 for Dash cam.

Make sure you know how to format your drives in FAT32 because Tesla does not recognize other kinds of format.

 

[colettimj]

I am not sure SSD speed is of any advantage currently because the USB port is 2.0, not USB-C.

However, SSD speed is great to cut down the wait time from your computer to your SSD.

There are 2 USB ports so you can use 1 for music and 1 for sentry/Dash Cam.

Some needs one for charging and the other one for 2 other functions. In this case, you need to partition 1 drive into 2: 1 for music and 1 for Dash cam.

Make sure you know how to format your drives in FAT32 because Tesla does not recognize other kinds of format.

You can partition a single USB stick into two drives, format both as FAT32, and put music on one and a Teslacam folder on the other for dashcam vids. Then you will only use one front USB port.

 

[Tam]

You can partition a single USB stick into two drives, format both as FAT32, and put music on one and a Teslacam folder on the other for dashcam vids. Then you will only use one front USB port.

Yes!

That's the idea if you are computer savvy!

But I wouldn't go through all the hassle as I only need to buy a long cord to connect from the back USB port to charge my phone in front and I can use 2 front USB ports for 1) music and 2) Sentry/Dash Cam.

 

[sduck]

Make sure you know how to format your drives in FAT32 because Tesla does not recognize other kinds of format.

Incorrect - the car also supports ext4 (and possibly ext2 and 3) for the music partition. And it works really well, also - with my ssd formatted with ext4 a fairly large library of music is catalogued by the time I can hit the usb indicator after plugging in the drive. The car is running linux behind the scenes, so this makes sense. Why this doesn't work for the dashcam drive also is kind of a mystery.

The only trick is finding a way to format to ext4 - if you have a linux box handy it's easy, not so much for mac and windows users. I found a nice little app by Paragon Software that manages ext drives on macs, and I'm sure there's something like it available for windows, but it's probably not free.

 

[Tam]

...Incorrect - the car also supports ext4 (and possibly ext2 and 3) for the music partition...

Good news for Linux compatible system indeed.

Windows 10 still doesn't recognize Linux ext4 so it's a hassle to find third party add-ons to support it.

 

[sduck]

Windows 10 still doesn't recognize Linux ext4 so it's a hassle to find third party add-ons to support it.

Linux File Systems for Windows | Paragon Software

 

[WileyTheMan]

The biggest advantage SSDs have in this environment is not speed, but heat tolerance and rewrite endurance. I highly recommend going the SSD route just for those reasons, and it's really not that much more expensive than a USB thumb drive.

 

[Knightshade]

The biggest advantage SSDs have in this environment is not speed, but heat tolerance and rewrite endurance. I highly recommend going the SSD route just for those reasons, and it's really not that much more expensive than a USB thumb drive.

The irony here is when someone mentioned the Samsung T5 SSD they were using, and I checked the manual, the heat tolerance was far worse than the Samsung USB key I'm using myself.

No argument on rewrite endurance, but with a 128GB capacity you're looking at between 8-20 years before exhausting the expected number of write cycles on even the USB stick, so the SSD is probably overkill.

 

[Venomized]

Can someone please recommend a very good SSD option from amazon with 256GB. I see a lot of option but not familiar with the differences.This will only be used for Teslacam and sentry mode. I will be activating sentry mode daily at home and at work. My car is parked outside daily. Thanks!

 

[Atari2600]

Samsung T5 Portable SSD - 500GB - USB 3.1 External SSD (MU-PA500B/AM) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073GZBT36/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_5G.RCb2SD56TM

I have two of these that I use for PC backups and they have a true 10Gb USB Gen2 interface. So you get the full SATA speed on your PC. The car is USB 2 so it doesn’t help there.
I purchased a Samsung 480GB enterprise class SSD for my Tesla and I don’t think it really got me anything extra. Next time I will get the T5.

I have two FAT32 partitions on my drive the one for the dashcam/sentry is larger than the music partition.

 

[Bombero1394]

For those worried about partitions and being tech savvy I bought two of the Anker 4 port usb hubs and put in 2 128gb thumb drives. The car recognizes both separate with no issues and I now have 8 usb for charging, music, and sentry. Maybe overkill. but $10.00

Anker 4-Port USB 3.0 Ultra Slim Data Hub for Macbook, Mac Pro/mini, iMac, Surface Pro, XPS, Notebook PC, USB Flash Drives, Mobile HDD, and More https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XMD7KPU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_FIY0CbDSADD5H

 

[cybergates]

For those worried about partitions and being tech savvy I bought two of the Anker 4 port usb hubs and put in 2 128gb thumb drives. The car recognizes both separate with no issues and I now have 8 usb for charging, music, and sentry. Maybe overkill. but $10.00

Anker 4-Port USB 3.0 Ultra Slim Data Hub for Macbook, Mac Pro/mini, iMac, Surface Pro, XPS, Notebook PC, USB Flash Drives, Mobile HDD, and More https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XMD7KPU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_FIY0CbDSADD5H

so put both hubs in both usb slots and can it charge two iphones at the same time?

 

[Saghost]

For those worried about partitions and being tech savvy I bought two of the Anker 4 port usb hubs and put in 2 128gb thumb drives. The car recognizes both separate with no issues and I now have 8 usb for charging, music, and sentry. Maybe overkill. but $10.00

Anker 4-Port USB 3.0 Ultra Slim Data Hub for Macbook, Mac Pro/mini, iMac, Surface Pro, XPS, Notebook PC, USB Flash Drives, Mobile HDD, and More https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XMD7KPU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_FIY0CbDSADD5H

This approach could have other benefits, too.

Under the current system, images from sentry mode are only stored on the USB stick, and thieves may figure this out one of these days, and start checking and grabbing any installed stick. But the wire for the hub leading deeper into the center console could look exactly like the factory phone charge cable, and they'd never know impress the dig in the depths of the console.

 

[Bombero1394]

so put both hubs in both usb slots and can it charge two iphones at the same time?

Yep!

 

[cybergates]

Yep!

ordered it and it came today! It works! I can have USB 128 gb sandisk drive (I'm using the very tiny ones that barely stick out = Ultrafit) + iPhone chargers working. I ordered two and will use the second one to put a USB mp3 drive on iwth the second iphone charger.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XMD7KPU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_FIY0CbDSADD5H?&tag=tmc064-20

So this one works. ^^ (Another 3.0 USB hub I tried a while back failed miserably.....)

 

[Mako3]

I put my own together for $31. Just put it in today and works great!

Found a 128GB Internal SSD for $20 from Newegg (two days left) plus a small USB-C enclosure from Amazon for $11. A nice, neat small package which I velcro'ed to the underside of the phone tray and connected to the Sabrent hub.

link to SSD
link to USB enclosure
link to 3 port USB hub

 

[samk579]

I heard that Tesla write a lot of info to the hard drive.
Should I use traditional HDD or SSD if that's the case?