Jeda just released a new USB hub. Mounts Flush and hides flash drive

[Knightshade]

Wait now I am confuse. You've been virtually screaming about how ssd's suck, and now you've joined us? (welcome to the better side btw)

Nope.

I didn't write that -that was a snippet from the other users previous post that landed outside the quote marks (corrected in edit)

#quotefail


directly quoting the original user who said that below for clarity-

I've recently switched from two USB thumb drives (one of them being Sandisk for TeslaCam) to a single SSD.

As I mentioned in the same post you were looking at I use one 256GB Samsung thumb drive for music, and one 128GB one for teslacam- with the several benefits of doing that I mentioned, and none of the several drawbacks of SSDs I mentioned.

 

[Eno Deb]

I was looking at this one on sale for $30, someone says it gets a bit hot though?

Can't speak to this particular model, but modern USB 3 thumb drives usually only get warm/hot if you use them in a USB 3 port. When running in USB 2 mode like in the Tesla, the controller is basically just twiddling its thumbs and stays cool.

My recommendation is to use SD cards with a small USB adapter (personally I use this tiny model without any issues), which gives you the option of using high endurance cards.

 

[sduck]

Nope.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Common_Loon]

I ordered one, and am interested in an SSD. I have a 32 GB flash drive in there and it fills up too quickly w/sentry. What SSDs do people have success with?

Samsung T5 SSD drive. People really shouldn't be using crappy traditional USB drives, they should be using proper SSD's given the constant write cycles, performance issues, etc. etc. It's also got extremely good heat tolerance.

 

[Knightshade]

Samsung T5 SSD drive. People really shouldn't be using crappy traditional USB drives, they should be using proper SSD's given the constant write cycles, performance issues, etc. etc. It's also got extremely good heat tolerance.

I mean, factually not as good as the USB keys you just said people shouldn't use...

(likewise none of the other issues you raise are actual a useful advantage of SSDs for this case, and they have some drawbacks besides- see, basically the entire previous couple of pages for the facts and math on that)

 

[Kognos]

Well, for one, it means 3 watts less power charging your cell phone since they're all sharing the same USB ports.... Even on a high-end hub device the tesla port itself is only supplying about 12 watts total per port- eating up almost 1/3rd of it at peak draw to run the SSD means only 2/3rds left to charge your phone... versus using a USB key where max consumption will be about 1/10th of that 3.43 W.

I don't see a problem with diminished charge, because (this is a Jeda thread after all) I use the Jeda wireless charger. It pulls for my iPhone at 7.5w maximum via Qi charging. Even if I had two phones - one for me +1 other - I've got power to spare with no diminished capacity even using SSD, even assuming it used peak power rate of 3.43w, which it never will.

For the most part SSD will always win on total available storage space, and the only real other argument is thermal mgmt (ambient cabin temp, not drive operation).

 

[sduck]

I mean, factually not as good as the USB keys you just said people shouldn't use...

Please, you've made your case. Several times in this thread already. Please allow others to state their opinions.

 

[Knightshade]

I don't see a problem with diminished charge, because (this is a Jeda thread after all) I use the Jeda wireless charger. It pulls for my iPhone at 7.5w maximum via Qi charging. Even if I had two phones - one for me +1 other - I've got power to spare with no diminished capacity even using SSD, even assuming it used peak power rate of 3.43w, which it never will.

For the most part SSD will always win on total available storage space, and the only real other argument is thermal mgmt (ambient cabin temp, not drive operation).

7.5w? Sure.

The newer iphones (xs, xs max) (and some android phones) support 10w Qi charging per here-
iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max Supports 10W Fast Wireless Charging, Here Are The Best Qi Chargers You Can Get Today

Which the front USB ports can't supply along with 3.43w to the SSD.


But as I said, this disadvantage of SSDs is pretty minor- but it still exists. As does the ambient temp disadvantage. And the size disadvantage. And the shorter warranty disadvantage. (all as compared to USB keys or SDcards)

In exchange for basically no relevant upside unless you have to have >512GB of space in a single device... (1TB SD/USB exists but prices are stupid)

Please, you've made your case. Several times in this thread already. Please allow others to state their opinions.

He did state his opinion, which certainly anyone is welcome to do.

He also stated some incorrect facts, which I corrected (the heat one for example).

 

[LunkHead]

I was looking at this one on sale for $30, someone says it gets a bit hot though?

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-256G...12ac88430ec93474594683b1d3dc0a&language=en_US

That's the one I am using. No issues whatsoever and I've not noticed it getting warm... I have the 256GB version...

 

[Petrlol]

2 USB-A inside the storage area (USB music, USB Dashcam), and 4 USB-A on the outside (2 for the phones, 2 for controllers) would have made this an instant purchase. Instead we're 1 short on the inside, and would have to use USB-c adapters.

I'm aware you can partition 1 drive for Music and Dashcam, but meh.

 

[n00bie]

WARNING BEFORE BUYING ANY FLASH DRIVE: SanDisk Tech rep said that you SHOULD NOT use any USB flash drive for Model 3 dash cam because they are not designed for continuous read/write recording. Instead, you need to use a High Endurance Micro SD card with USB reader for continuous read/write capabilities.

 

[voip-ninja]

2 USB-A inside the storage area (USB music, USB Dashcam), and 4 USB-A on the outside (2 for the phones, 2 for controllers) would have made this an instant purchase. Instead we're 1 short on the inside, and would have to use USB-c adapters.

I'm aware you can partition 1 drive for Music and Dashcam, but meh.

There are serious power limitations in a passive hub setup like this, I'm skeptical that there is enough power delivery on the two ports to drive four ports that might have phone chargers and SSD drives connected to them.

 

[Knightshade]

WARNING BEFORE BUYING ANY FLASH DRIVE: SanDisk Tech rep said that you SHOULD NOT use any USB flash drive for Model 3 dash cam because they are not designed for continuous read/write recording. Instead, you need to use a High Endurance Micro SD card with USB reader for continuous read/write capabilities.

You mean a guy who sells flash products told you you NEED to buy the more expensive version?

Shocker.


Meanwhile, back in reality, even cheap flash is rated for 1000 write cycles- which as already shown with actual math is going to be 5-10 years of use for the tesla dash cam before it's an issue.


If you prefer more like several decades of writing to the same card, like you're keeping this car for 30 years or something, by all means spend a few bucks more on the high endurance card though- they're typically good for 3000-5000 full write cycles so you're talking 15-25 years on the low end there.



NOTE- to be fair to the rep, he likely knows zero about Teslas, and is thinking of regular aftermarket 4k dash cams, which are writing many times more data per second to the flash than a Tesla is, and thus wearing them out many times faster.

In THOSE cases, absolutely don't use cheap flash, since 5-10 years suddenly becomes like 6-12 months.

 

[Eno Deb]

YMeanwhile, back in reality, even cheap flash is rated for 1000 write cycles- which as already shown with actual math is going to be 5-10 years of use for the tesla dash cam before it's an issue.


If you prefer more like several decades of writing to the same card, like you're keeping this car for 30 years or something, by all means spend a few bucks more on the high endurance card though- they're typically good for 3000-5000 full write cycles so you're talking 15-25 years on the low end there.

Note that the stated write cycles to failure are usually not guaranteed but averages (and most manufacturers are less than transparent about the exact metrics used). You may end up with memory that lasts significantly longer or fails significantly earlier. From the consumer perspective the main differentiator between regular and endurance cards is that the manufacturer warranty usually only covers dashcam use or other write-intensive applications with the endurance cards, which means the chances of getting a dud are probably lower. It's up to the user to decide whether the peace of mind is worth a few dollars more.

 

[Kognos]

7.5w? Sure.

The newer iphones (xs, xs max) (and some android phones) support 10w Qi charging per here-
iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max Supports 10W Fast Wireless Charging, Here Are The Best Qi Chargers You Can Get Today

Which the front USB ports can't supply along with 3.43w to the SSD.

Yes it can. Please don't pick and choose your arguments here ... 3.43w is peak power rate, which is not sustained load, ever, in a Tesla context. USB media + 3 files written every minute will be idle a ton, and this isn't a binary operation where the SSD says "I don't have 3.43w? I'm turning entirely off." It doesn't work that way. It simply degrades performance.

The true power use of a Samsung T5 SSD is somewhere between the idle rate (The 500GB variant idles at around 0.38W) and the peak power rate. It's not the "load testing, beat me up, challenge me, read/write constantly" power rate. So please stop insinuating that all SSDs everywhere are pulling their max, peak-power rate, all the time. (See below also for some issues on the power rate in my reply to n00bie)

So even assuming that I had a 10w Qi chargeable device, and even assuming that I had two of them on both USB ports, and even assuming I then had a SSD attached ... they're both going to work absolutely fine, and the slight loss to charging a phone won't even be noticeable. And that's an awful lot of assumptions and unrealistic peak power usage.

The net here is that there's plenty of power to go around for two phones and a SSD used in this context.

In exchange for basically no relevant upside unless you have to have >512GB of space in a single device...

That IS the upside. Some people have large media volumes. Some people want large(r) TeslaCam volumes. The criteria you stated as potential exception is exactly the context I'm talking about. Even with less storage, the drive you're using personally maxes out at 256gb. SSDs start looking better after that range, from a lot of angles.

WARNING BEFORE BUYING ANY FLASH DRIVE: SanDisk Tech rep said that you SHOULD NOT use any USB flash drive for Model 3 dash cam because they are not designed for continuous read/write recording. Instead, you need to use a High Endurance Micro SD card with USB reader for continuous read/write capabilities.

I'm not convinced that Tesla is continuously read/writing. One can see in the Samsung SSD the drive indicator and it's not being accessed constantly (I did just check). It's idle an awful lot. Now this goes into a lot of factors -- clearly SSD has a lot more guts to it (hence the "overkill" comments) so it might be caching data and not writing until a buffer is full. Or - we don't know for sure - Tesla might only copy out the cam files every minute.

One can say that even caching data is "using the SSD" but write operations to non-volatile memory is more expensive than RAM in any context, again going to less peak-power usage. Regardless the SSD doesn't show activity constantly, with TeslaCam running.

If it is streaming then that might be a power benefit to SSDs. If MicroSD has no hardware to cache and must constantly be in a write mode that is a higher power rate.

Either way its another factor.

 

[n00bie]

@Knightshade
To be fair, Micro SD card is their bread and butter.

@Eno Deb
To his defense, TeslaTap.com guy said

I'm the one recommending 40 MB/s or faster. Slower drives can work, but it can be a crap shoot. There are two issues -most drives are rated for burst write speed, which is a lot faster than the drive's ability to handle continuous video recording for three channels at the same time. Then there is the issue when you either tap the dashcam icon to take a snapshot or using Security mode. These require copying 30 huge video files (read and writing) while still recording three 720P video streams. Slow drives are not going to keep up and the video gets corrupted or files are lost or missing.

@Kognos
I didn't suggest to go Micro SD over SSD. Micro SD > USB ONLY if you want to go that route.

The SSD T5 is capped @600 MB/s transfer rate and still isn't fast enough so going further, I suggest M.2 NvMe SSD (3 GB/s transfer rate) with a USB 3 enclosure even the car reads/writes at USB 2.0 speeds.

 

[Eno Deb]

@Eno Deb
To his defense, TeslaTap.com guy said
[...]Then there is the issue when you either tap the dashcam icon to take a snapshot or using Security mode. These require copying 30 huge video files (read and writing) while still recording three 720P video streams.[...]

This is nonsense. The files are not copied but moved (which requires only minimal data transfer to move directory entries around).

The SSD T5 is capped @600 MB/s transfer rate and still isn't fast enough

Not fast enough for what?

 

[n00bie]

Not fast enough for what?

forget sarcasm font. SSD T5 is like 2yrs old now (old tech).

 

[Knightshade]

That IS the upside. Some people have large media volumes. Some people want large(r) TeslaCam volumes. The criteria you stated as potential exception is exactly the context I'm talking about. Even with less storage, the drive you're using personally maxes out at 256gb. SSDs start looking better after that range, from a lot of angles.

Well, bigger than 512 anyway- I agree if you need more than you'll have to take the drawbacks of an SSD, because 1TB SDcards are just stupidly expensive in comparison.

Personally I'd rather keep the pluses of the smaller, lower power, higher environmental toughness storage and use 1 key for music and 1 for the camera.

I'm not convinced that Tesla is continuously read/writing. One can see in the Samsung SSD the drive indicator and it's not being accessed constantly (I did just check). It's idle an awful lot. Now this goes into a lot of factors -- clearly SSD has a lot more guts to it (hence the "overkill" comments) so it might be caching data and not writing until a buffer is full. Or - we don't know for sure - Tesla might only copy out the cam files every minute.

None of that really matters from an endurance perspective.... it's how much total writing happens over time that's the issue.


Flash memory.... all flash memory, even what is used for SSDs, is rated for a number of write cycles.

In the example I gave a cheap 128GB key/card rated for 1000 cycles should, on average, be good to write 128GB 1000 times.

Which would take ~5-10 years of typical duty for the Tesla camera features.... a 256GB one would be more like 10-20 years to hit 1000 write cycles. Which is likely longer than folks will own the car.


Higher end flash (used in endurance keys/cards, and some SSDs) is good for 3000-5000 cycles- so roughly 15-30 years on the low end of that, or 30-50 years on the high. Which is crazy more than most folks are likely to ever need.

(there's even higher levels of flash where the price goes up further than you can get say 10,000 rated cycles, not gonna bother with the math on that one).


Point being- for as little as the cameras actually write, if you're using any of these options on a decent sized drive, you'll be fine with even the cheaper versions for many years.

 

[Glamisduner]

The problem with high endurance micro sd is they only seem to be available in 128gb. might as well just get a 256gb usb3 thumb dive for 1/2 the price?