MASTER THREAD: USB drives that work with Sentry and TeslaCam

[Knightshade]

From what I've learned so far, many USB drives were not designed for continuous write and will overheat and eventually die because of this.

A easy way to pick a flash drive that is designed for speed and continuous operation is to look for the "endurance" micro SD cards. You need something with a V20 rating which means it can sustain 20MB/S continuous write speed. Don't bother with the maximum write speed rating.

The car writes at 1.5 MB/sec.

You don't need anywhere near 20MB/s sustained capability.

Nor is it writing "continuously" as even the crappiest USB drives can do 5-10 times higher write speeds than the car is actually writing at... which means 80-90% of each minute it's not writing.

Some quick math- if the drive can "only" write 10MB/sec (which again is significantly slower than average for even cheap drives) and it needs to write the previous minutes worth of video that's 30MB times 3 videos. 90 MB.

90 MB at 10MB/sec takes 9 seconds.

Out of the 60 seconds it has until the next one.

9/60=.15 so only 15% of that time it's writing.

85% of the time it'll be not writing.


Again- this is a software problem, not a hardware problem.

Another option is to just buy a M2 2280 SSD drive ($35 for 240GB) and add an enclosure for $12. That should be cheaper than the high class micro SD drives at the same size, and will easily outperform them.

A 128GB high class SD drive would be about the same price (and use about 10x less power and be physically smaller.

A 128GB high class USB key would be cheaper (well, ~same price for the device, but not require an adapter like the other 2 that cost more) and also be smaller and use about 10x less power than the SSD.

And since the car interface is USB2, and the car is writing at only a tiny fraction of even USB2 speed, there'd be no performance difference at all.

Indeed every type of recordable device including SSDs have seen the same sorts of problems like corrupt video, 0 byte files, etc.


Again, this is a software problem, not a hardware problem.


Only really reason to buy an SSD is if you need a massive amount of space (like >256GB) because you have a huge music collection and also want to do camera recording with a single device.

Personally I use a separate USB key for music and camera as I want the camera to have a dedicated port so one less point of failure, while the music key can sit on a hub just fine with charging cables also attached.

 

[V__2]

We don't know how the car writes the video files to the disk. Manufacturers are always providing the maximum speed their devices can reach at perfect conditions, i.e. ideal queue depth, ideal condition of the garbage collection engine, almost free disk.

However the latency of drive controller responding to commands is not mentioned. If the car firmware has a tight data flash timeout interval and expects drive to return to reporting "available" faster than it actually does, then it may fail the drive as slow.

I actually like the idea that they check speed. In an emergency situation, such as a crash, where power could be cut abruptly from the piro fuse, you need to flush (clear buffers) the data as soon as possible and a slow performing drive may not be up to task.

 

[ezevphl]

I'm on 2019.15 and have been having plenty of problems with dashcam recordings. Can't play with standard windows media, only certain players (like VLC). Also getting occasional messages about camera features. I had a mobile service appt scheduled and they cancelled it and said the issue is known and will be addressed in an update.

 

[Knightshade]

We don't know how the car writes the video files to the disk. Manufacturers are always providing the maximum speed their devices can reach at perfect conditions, i.e. ideal queue depth, ideal condition of the garbage collection engine, almost free disk.

However the latency of drive controller responding to commands is not mentioned. If the car firmware has a tight data flash timeout interval and expects drive to return to reporting "available" faster than it actually does, then it may fail the drive as slow.

I actually like the idea that they check speed. In an emergency situation, such as a crash, where power could be cut abruptly from the piro fuse, you need to flush (clear buffers) the data as soon as possible and a slow performing drive may not be up to task.

Except even folks using VERY high speed/performance drives are getting the error.

Again, it is not a hardware problem it is a software problem

ANY drive is way faster than the car needs for what it's actually writing.

 

[brampower]

I use a Sandisk Connect USB drive (200GB) and even since I upgraded to 2019.24.4 I have been getting nothing but 1kb files. I didn't get any error on my screen, it claims that it's working fine but both Senty Mode and Dashcam videos are affected. This used to happen sporadically (just like everyone else) for certain cameras, but ever since the upgrade every single video file has been 1kb. I swapped it out with a different USB device today (SD card reader with a 256GB Samsung SD card in it). Will check when I get home from work; hopefully it's something with the drive. I'd hate if I had to make a SC appointment to get this fixed; I don't like being without the Sentry recordings.

Update: I used the SD Card reader (with Sandisk SD card, not Samsung as mentioned above, I mixed them up) and everything has been working fine. 24.4 must have somehow fried my old USB drive, I am not sure what happened. Either way, I am happy that it is still working and that I don't need to go to a SC. I'll keep an eye on how many of the files are going to be corrupted (so far I only had one Sentry mode trigger and all files were working without distortion, but it's a very small sample size).

 

[V__2]

Except even folks using VERY high speed/performance drives are getting the error.

Again, it is not a hardware problem it is a software problem

ANY drive is way faster than the car needs for what it's actually writing.

Don't want to argue one way or another, only Tesla has the access to determine if root cause is the attached drives or a firmware bug. However want to point out again that the stated MB/s speed on the package is not all that makes a drive fast or slow.

I do encourage sending bug reports to Tesla so they gain visibility into the extent of the issue.

 

[V__2]

I'm on 2019.15 and have been having plenty of problems with dashcam recordings. Can't play with standard windows media, only certain players (like VLC). Also getting occasional messages about camera features. I had a mobile service appt scheduled and they cancelled it and said the issue is known and will be addressed in an update.

As far as playback of media files, Tesla switched to a more efficient, i.e. producing smaller files, video encoder. Windows 10 offers a free HEVC decoder in the Store.

Get HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer - Microsoft Store

There is also a $1 paid version if your device is not on the get it free list.

 

[Knightshade]

As far as playback of media files, Tesla switched to a more efficient, i.e. producing smaller files, video encoder. Windows 10 offers a free HEVC decoder in the Store.

Get HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer - Microsoft Store

There is also a $1 paid version if your device is not on the get it free list.

AFAIK there's not been any switch on any car.

The H.265 video is on HW3 cars (and it never switched, it started that way) with HW2.5 cars still recording H.264.... that's thusfar been the easiest way to tell which version of the AP computer you have.

If this has changed it's the first I'm hearing of it and would love a link to read more.

Don't want to argue one way or another, only Tesla has the access to determine if root cause is the attached drives or a firmware bug.

The fact even people with both high-end SDcards, high-end USB drives, and even high-end SSDs all get the same issues suggests that it's pretty clearly a software issue not a hardware one.

However want to point out again that the stated MB/s speed on the package is not all that makes a drive fast or slow.

Strawman. Literally nobody suggested the speed on the package matters at all.

We're discussing actual measured sequential write speeds. Which even on the slowest USB keys of any size are roughly 5-10 times faster than the car actually is writing data, and many times faster than that on most keys/cards/drives.... all of which keep having the same types of issues regardless of their actual speed. Because it's software issues, not hardware.

 

[alseTrick]

Seems like Tesla must've fixed this.

My cam works every time I get in the car now. For the last ~2 days. Not sure how though. I didn't update my firm ware, change my USB drive or alter my Tesla cam habits.

 

[Ragnarkov]

I'm on 24.4 and I just recently realized I had a 128gb microSD sitting around basically collecting dust.

I used Fat32 and made 2 partitions. 30gb for dashcam, and the rest for music and (hopefully in the future) movies for those long ferry lineups etc. Its in a cheapy usb 2.0 adapter.

Plugged it in, and it seems to be doing sentry video and forced download of the last 28min (at least that's the period its downloading for me) just fine.

I also have a small usb A to usb C adapter I keep in my console. Pull the drive out, attach it to my phone, and using the teslacam/sentry reviewer app, I can see all the videos without issues. Its a pretty sweet app, and IMO a must for every single Tesla owner.

And all this while I'm playing music from it.

I know it should be common practice these days, but if your car suddenly starts doing something... wierd... try doing a hard reboot. Not a display reboot, but a hard one. It is after all, basically a computer with wheels. If a software update screws something up, then it would happen right after the update installs (usually cause the install glitched). If that happens however, definitely schedule a mobile service call, so they can come and re-install the system. But its definitely not uncommon to have strange glitches (seemingly at random) on computers that can be fixed with a hard reboot.

 

[Msjulie]

For what it's worth (near nothing?) this is what I have : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G5JV2B5

Like another poster, I chose that so I could get a camera-grade? SD card for it; figuring cameras take lots of pics.. whatever, the card I got is: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V5Q1K3O

The adapter is plugged into one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074DRW84M so I can still have 2 active phone chargers though primarily only driver side is used.

After 24.4, I rebooted (first time ever cause of hearing so many issues)

I have had zero failures with the camera or the files. Maybe just lucky...

 

[Charlan83]

I don't even get a dialog message about USB drive speed or anything it just simply stopped saving them down after the 24.4 update.

 

[Kleenerth3]

As explained to me by my electrical engineering student nephew it goes like this. USB is for storage, an occasional erase and rewrite. SD card is for pics, what our cars are using, and constant erasures and records. The constant erasures are what corrupt your USB, not so much to do with memory or speed.
This made sense to me but I'm not an electronic whiz...

 

[Tuazon81]

Reposting my update from another thread:

I don't know what's happening but I have not received any updates since I posted this thread but I checked my USB drive and as of 08/01/19, Sentry and Dashcam are recording normally again. I should be happy but I don't like the idea that that happened without any cause and fixed itself without any actions from my end. This just makes sentry and dashcam unreliable.

2019.24.4 version

 

[G35Rocker]

I was using a SanDisk Extreme GO USB 3.1, 128gb before the update with no issues. After the update, I got the error message about the USB being too slow. I replaced the drive with a Staples brand USB 2.0, 16gb drive and it worked! The saved clips play fine. The recent clips do not play and are about 1K.

 

[is95aus]

I have 24.4, and my TeslaCam flash keeps on working...

I have one of these:
View attachment 435803

I have the same one with 24.4 and just got the message this morning that my usb is too slow...

 

[TEG]

Yes, it happened to me once also now. But just one time, and I was able to restart it then it was OK again.

 

[m4eyyz]

Once I got 24.4 I had the "too slow" message and replaced it with screaming fast drive. But the issue I am still having is that the drive is not recognized at all (ie: the dashcam icon doesn't even show) when I start up the car. I have also noticed that on some occasions my nomad wireless charger doesn't power up as soon as the car lights up. It can take a minute or so.

The only way I'm able to get the drive to show / start recording is to remove it and re-stab it. After I do that - the icon pops up with the red dot. It also seems that as long as the car hasn't gone to sleep, the dash cam does start up when I start driving again.. But after a sleep I have the same issue.

(I am also using a splitter on one of the ports (where the other side powers the nomad).
I have the same issue when I totally remove the splitter.

Up until 24.4 the dash cam has been working fine. I'm hoping it may resolve itself on the next update.

Anyone else have this issue?

 

[zosoisnotaword]

I'm getting the same 1kb file problem that others have reported since updating to 24.4, but it appears to be completely random when it works vs being broken. I had a block of saved Sentry recording folders over a 3 day period last week. About 80% of them were 1kb, but a couple folders in the middle contained perfect files. I'm still on 24.4, but I doubt 28.2 fixes it.

 

[alseTrick]

Seems like Tesla must've fixed this.

My cam works every time I get in the car now. For the last ~2 days. Not sure how though. I didn't update my firm ware, change my USB drive or alter my Tesla cam habits.

Check that.

It is back to having the same error almost every time now.

I have no idea why it randomly worked again for ~2 days.