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Recommended USB drive for dashcam
- Thread starter Shygar
- Start date
I use this for my blackvue without issues and it's probably pressed 125f inside no problems.
I bought the Samsung Bar Plus 128GB and am seeing missing/corrupted video frequently.
I tried copying a large file to the drive from my computer, and although the average write speed is around 25MB/s I often will see "stuttering" and fluctuations in the write speed (sometimes it will drop completely to 0 for a second). I can write to other USB sticks at a constant 180MB/s, so not my machine. I suggest trying this with your stick, with a 1GB file (watch the graph in Win10 to see the write speed).
I'm going to switch over to a microSD card with USB reader, as they have guarantees around consistent write speeds over time. I'll see if that eliminates the corruption. But based on my evidence, I would strongly suggest avoiding the Samsung Bar Plus 128GB.
I tried copying a large file to the drive from my computer, and although the average write speed is around 25MB/s I often will see "stuttering" and fluctuations in the write speed (sometimes it will drop completely to 0 for a second). I can write to other USB sticks at a constant 180MB/s, so not my machine. I suggest trying this with your stick, with a 1GB file (watch the graph in Win10 to see the write speed).
I'm going to switch over to a microSD card with USB reader, as they have guarantees around consistent write speeds over time. I'll see if that eliminates the corruption. But based on my evidence, I would strongly suggest avoiding the Samsung Bar Plus 128GB.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
I'm using a 128GB samsung and have had no such issues.
The cars max write speed to the drive from the cameras is... 1.5 MB/s.
Even folks running SSDs have had corrupted video issues.
It's not a hardware problem it's a software problem.
morningstar
Member
I've been having issues with corrupted files on my micro SD card too and came here to see if there's a card or flash drive that might work better. But then I see people saying it's a software issue, not the cards so now I don't know what to do. I've been using a 128 gb Kingston Endurance micro sdxc and much of the video I record is corrupt. I do make sure I pause the recording before pulling the drive out. I thought maybe the USB adapter I'm using might be a problem since it's pretty old so I grabbed a different flash drive, formatted it and tried it, but it's also old. It also had corrupt video as well as missing video that just didn't seem to be recorded and of course the stuff that is missing was right when someone was around my car and triggered an event so I know someone was there, but only have 1 minute of their activity and nothing else recorded of them. Anyway, I could buy a new usb adapter to see if this sd card will work. Or just buy a new usb flash drive and try that. If I can't get this to work reliably then I need to start looking into a separate dash cam. ugh.
I just watched a YouTube video on this topic, and one of the commons made led me to look at each recommended product'a operating temperature. I was surprised to see that most don't operate rate below freezing. For those that live in "extreme" climates, I'd encourage you to check those specs.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
I've seen a few folks report that.... it's demonstrably nonsense as literally any USB drive is many times faster than the dog-slow write speeds of the tesla camera so must be some kinda bug... hopefully will be fixed in the chess update going out starting today
evM3Sekar
Member
Same here. Have a Sandisk Extreme Go USB with write speeds of up to 150 MB/s (I believe Mega-Bytes, NOT Mega-bits) and read speeds of up to 200 MB/s. Must be a bug as suggested by (see below).
Here too and for the first time, we actually needed to record an incident with the dashcam when an errant mudflap from cement truck came bouncing at us on the highway. Took a minor hit to the front bumper and knocked out a front ultrasonic sensor. Touched the dashcam button and got the "too slow" warning
I use a Sandisk Extreme Go 3.1 USB (128Gb) and got this same message also since 2019.24.4 release on my Model 3.
Tried:
Formatting it over and over again : no result
Plugged directly in USB port instead of split cable for wireless/Qi charging : no result.
Danny Brown
Member
I’m not using a nice USB stick, but I had NO problems until immediately following 24.4 update. This error popped up immediately after the firmware updated.
Previously my stick had recorded just fine for 3 months. Drive was cleared out (only half full) in an attempt to fix but that still didn’t matter.
Previously my stick had recorded just fine for 3 months. Drive was cleared out (only half full) in an attempt to fix but that still didn’t matter.
There may well be a bug on Tesla's side, but I also don't think that TeslaCam writes continually to the drive. It seems to write in bursts every minute or so, evidenced by yanking the drive at random times myself (finding no video for the past minute) and people who were involved in accidents pulling the drive before TeslaCam had a chance to write the buffer to the drive.
To me, this points out that write speed may matter for the data rate of the buffer writes. Other errors may point to the operating temperature of the drive (quits after 15 minutes), while other errors (failures) may point to limited write cycles, especially with smaller drives.
The zero byte files would be more likely if the write was a burst as opposed to continual, where you would likely find files of varying size on a write failure.
In short, likely more than one reason for failure, but buying a large, fast and ideally an endurance (dashcam) rated MicroSD drive or SSD is likely a good idea. Replacing a cheap small card a few times costs more than just getting a rated 128 or 256 card and being done with it.
To me, this points out that write speed may matter for the data rate of the buffer writes. Other errors may point to the operating temperature of the drive (quits after 15 minutes), while other errors (failures) may point to limited write cycles, especially with smaller drives.
The zero byte files would be more likely if the write was a burst as opposed to continual, where you would likely find files of varying size on a write failure.
In short, likely more than one reason for failure, but buying a large, fast and ideally an endurance (dashcam) rated MicroSD drive or SSD is likely a good idea. Replacing a cheap small card a few times costs more than just getting a rated 128 or 256 card and being done with it.
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Well yeah, each clip is 60 seconds...so if you pull the drive before it finished the last minute you don't get the last minute.
But that doesn't change the math at all.
1.5MB/sec is 90MB/minute.
And since it has another 60 seconds to finish the writes before the next clips are ready it still only needs to be writing....1.5 MB/sec.
Which is way slower than the slowest USB drives of any size out there.
People with SSDs and ultra-fast SD endurance cards are having the same random problems people with generic drives of comparable size are... 0 byte files, corrupt repeater video, etc...
These are not hardware problems- they are software problems.
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