optimal USB setup for music and dashcam

[bhzmark]

Has anyone looked into doing the work to figure out the optimal USB setup to use dashcam and to have music play reliably and in an organized way on the new v9 music interface?

1. What is the largest USB thumb drive that reliably works well in the Tesla?

2. What is the formatting procedure and file structure that works well to use it for both dashcam and music?

3. Is there a way to organize the music so that the album song order is preserved and an album with various artists doesn't show up as a multiple albums for each artists? For former problem seems to be solved in v9, but not the latter.

4. Is there any music file buying service and download service that works well with high quality files that downloads into an immediately useful file structure? I have a bunch of ripped CDs with flacs but with the problems above, I would re buy them all from HD Tracks or Amazon music or something if necessary to get an optimal file structure all at once.

Thanks for answers to above and any other hints and tips and any thing else that others may find useful.

 

[Ande]

As for largest USB drive:

That depends on the file system, more than the media (Flash/SSD/HDD or NAS box etc)
Most USB devices are sold formatted with FAT32, it limits the data to 2TB , and filesize to 4GB, it was fine in the 90's - but now it may be fine for those stuck with windows.

Your car runs Linux, so it can (among other things), use the EXT4 format. Should you format the device to EXT4, then the limit is 1EB (about 1million terabytes , and no file size limits) - so... one milion TeraBytes should be enough.


EXT4 is faster, more efficient, and journalling
to make the EXT4 device allow by default any/all users ; use this to set default EXT4 permissions to all:

setfacl -m d:u::rwx,d:g::rwx,d:eek:::rwx /media/[user]/[USB]

Currently there is no SAN with 1EB that will fit inside the car, so you'll have to wait a few more years, but for now, there are some 1TB USB flash drives and 16TB USB HDD's

 

[hulk2k17]

I see lots of threads with folks commenting about using something other than FAT32, but the release notes and the Tesla support page clearly states, use FAT32. I tried NTFS and exFAT for a 64 GB USB flash drive for music and neither formats worked. But once I got the drive in FAT32, it has worked consistently.

 

[Ande]

.... and neither formats worked.

Let me guess, EXT4 ; you did not see music on it (because of permissions) if it worked, it should be rock solid, EXT4 is the filesystem the operating system uses itself.
But whatever floats your boat should be fine.
For music (read only) the extra safety of journalling file system is not an important thing, it's more important if you write to the file system, (dashcam) in case of an abrupt termination during write, you are more likely to end with a fully usable file or one that also got the final data sectors. With FAT, you are more likely to lose last seconds (as FAT(file allocation table) were not updated, or just see a 0-byte file.
I doubt NTFS is supported by the os. (That would require them to use additional package for that, I simply don't think they would bloat it up with NTFS support) not does NTFS have meaningful permission system for this OS.

 

[bhzmark]

suggestions for getting around the 32 GB limit on FAT32 are below.

Has anyone done this with dashcam and music on the same FAT32 formatted drive that is > 32GB?

Turns out that 64GB USB drives cannot be natively formatted as Fat32 in Windows 10, so I thought i'd give some tips as to how I did it.

1. Format the drive as NTFS via Windows
2. Macrorit has a free FAT32 converter on their website @ Free Download Partition Magic Manager Alternative Software - click on the FAT32 Converter tab, and download whatever edition you want to use.
3. Open the NTFS to FAT32 converter software, select your flash drive, and click Convert Now at the bottom right.
4. Create a TeslaCam folder in the root of the drive
5. Plug in to your AP2.5 Tesla and you should see what looks like a little camera at the top right of your screen!

Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd

 

[FlyinDelorean]

As for largest USB drive:

That depends on the file system, more than the media (Flash/SSD/HDD or NAS box etc)
Most USB devices are sold formatted with FAT32, it limits the data to 2TB , and filesize to 4GB, it was fine in the 90's - but now it may be fine for those stuck with windows.

Your car runs Linux, so it can (among other things), use the EXT4 format. Should you format the device to EXT4, then the limit is 1EB (about 1million terabytes , and no file size limits) - so... one milion TeraBytes should be enough.


EXT4 is faster, more efficient, and journalling
to make the EXT4 device allow by default any/all users ; use this to set default EXT4 permissions to all:

setfacl -m d:u::rwx,d:g::rwx,d:eek:::rwx /media/[user]/[USB]

Currently there is no SAN with 1EB that will fit inside the car, so you'll have to wait a few more years, but for now, there are some 1TB USB flash drives and 16TB USB HDD's

Were you able to confirm dashcam works on ext4 and not only FAT32? TY

 

[Ande]

Were you able to confirm dashcam works on ext4 and not only FAT32? TY

No, I have AP1, but I know enough about programming, to know that an application (like dashcam) operates at much higher level than being aware of file system type unless it's checking it.
An application creating/ writing to a file does not at any time refer to filesystem directly, but goes through an API that is the same regardless of file system.
The main reason people fail at trying EXT4 usb, is that the UID/GID (userID) of a Tesla is not very likely to be what you formatted the stick with, and default permissions does not allow it to access the contents. (That's why you need to set liberal defaults on the usb device)

 

[FlyinDelorean]

No, I have AP1, but I know enough about programming, to know that an application (like dashcam) operates at much higher level than being aware of file system type unless it's checking it.
An application creating/ writing to a file does not at any time refer to filesystem directly, but goes through an API that is the same regardless of file system.
The main reason people fail at trying EXT4 usb, is that the UID/GID (userID) of a Tesla is not very likely to be what you formatted the stick with, and default permissions does not allow it to access the contents. (That's why you need to set liberal defaults on the usb device)

Well tonight may be your lucky night for a test implementation! I got v9 last night, and, to my horror, the dashcam 256GB Samsung USB stick, after a certain duration of time (not sure how long), decided it had run out of space. This is pretty much impossible, so I'm wondering if I hit the 4GB file limit. I'll be taking a look at the thumb drive in a little bit and probably reformatting to ext4 with your permission settings and see what happens.

 

[SpudLime]

To record dash cam and play music on the same USB, you need to create two separate partitions of FAT32.

One for your dash cam recordings. The other for your music.

 

[sean_az]

To record dash cam and play music on the same USB, you need to create two separate partitions of FAT32.

One for your dash cam recordings. The other for your music.

This solution works. Thank you

 

[bhzmark]

another forum concluded Tesla’s implementation on only stores 1 HOUR on the USB key. Each clip is 29 megs so the max is 1.8GB of storage dashcam needs.

 

[SpudLime]

another forum concluded Tesla’s implementation on only stores 1 HOUR on the USB key. Each clip is 29 megs so the max is 1.8GB of storage dashcam needs.

this does not account for when you click the icon to save footage. So the bigger the drive the more you can save before having to delete them off.

 

[bhzmark]

this awesome post and many responses has the answers [V9] How to Format USB into 2 Partitions for DashCam and Music [Windows]

 

[heider]

As for largest USB drive:

That depends on the file system, more than the media (Flash/SSD/HDD or NAS box etc)
Most USB devices are sold formatted with FAT32, it limits the data to 2TB , and filesize to 4GB, it was fine in the 90's - but now it may be fine for those stuck with windows.

Your car runs Linux, so it can (among other things), use the EXT4 format. Should you format the device to EXT4, then the limit is 1EB (about 1million terabytes , and no file size limits) - so... one milion TeraBytes should be enough.


EXT4 is faster, more efficient, and journalling
to make the EXT4 device allow by default any/all users ; use this to set default EXT4 permissions to all:

setfacl -m d:u::rwx,d:g::rwx,d:eek:::rwx /media/[user]/[USB]

Currently there is no SAN with 1EB that will fit inside the car, so you'll have to wait a few more years, but for now, there are some 1TB USB flash drives and 16TB USB HDD's

Thanks for the hint but it does not work with my tesla. I've tried to setup the USB Key with ext3/4 and enable the acl options for the fs and set the acl for setting the permissions. The car seems to recognize the usb stick but always shows an X at the recording sign with the TeslaCam folder.
The partition table also have no effect for accessing it. I cannot verify if it worked with v8 and it got limited with the new firmware.

 

[FlyinDelorean]

To give an updated report, I never did format with ext4. But I did find that the biggest problem with corruption appeared to be caused by the partition table on the drive using MBR and not GPT. Having switched to GPT, and, with updated firmware, the dashcam pretty much stopped bugging out on me.

 

[frequencydip]

Were you able to confirm dashcam works on ext4 and not only FAT32? TY

After having issues with the drive becoming corrupt I switched to ext4 and its been working just fine since. I created all the folders as root and those permissions are working just fine.

 

[irelandm]

EXT4 is faster, more efficient, and journalling to make the EXT4 device allow by default any/all users ; use this to set default EXT4 permissions to all:

setfacl -m d:u::rwx,d:g::rwx,d:eek:::rwx /media/[user]/[USB]

I'm not sure exactly what the d:eek component of your setfacl code is as I am unfamiliar with that particular command - and it spits out an error at the first e of eek when I try. I read the MAN page regarding it and couldn't find the reference. In any case, I just changed that part to d::rwx which should set the permissions allow "other" users full access. I'll report back regarding whether or not it works for me. FYI, I have been a Linux user since the beginning of time (well, 2004 or 5 or something), and I didn't even think to try EXT4 in my Model 3 LOL! You'd think I would have thought of it right away.

Here's the complete code:

sudo setfacl -m d:u::rwx,d:g::rwx,d:o::rwx /media/[username]/[USB]

Note that this is using Ubuntu Linux 18.04; other distros or versions may mount the USB drive in a different location (I don't know because I don't use other distros).

 

[irelandm]

Update: Well that didn't work at all. In fact, when I plugged my thumb drive back into my computer, it had the owner set to User 999 and the group set to 999, and the permissions set to none. Weird. Again, totally unfamiliar with the setfacl command. So I tried chmod -R 777 [drive_mountpoint] ... and I still get the little grey x on the icon in the Model 3.

What's particularly strange to me is that this drive had been working for quite awhile when I originally stabbed it in there. I even went so far as to paint it glossy red to go with my car, haha. Anyhoo ... I'ma gonna keep trying different permissions settings and stuff; in fact I'll even try re-formatting (and erasing) it using gparted on my Ubuntu machine, and see where that gets me. I'll report back.

 

[irelandm]

Okay, final update for now. I was totally unsuccessful with EXT4. My attempt using gparted resulted in a thumb drive that was owned by ROOT with no permissions, and manually changing them using any of the various command line tools was ineffective. I then attempted using the default Disks tool (which Ubuntu uses from Nautilus); I went for an EXT4 and fully erased it. Again I tried adjusting all the permissions using the various tools to no avail.

I then used the same tool to format to FAT (right-click on the USB from the file manager), without the full-erase option. Boom. Works. :shrug: