Samsung T7 SSD vs high endurance class 10 Micro SD card

[decklan]

Now that I've used both, I just wanted to post a brief review of how much better the SSD drive is. In short, it's both faster and more reliable.

The old sd card would
* stutter while viewing
* take a second to delete a clip and re-load the list of clips
* chop off the video early, often in the middle of the actual event being recorded

I haven't had the SSD very long so hopefully I'm not being too premature in this review but so far it's way better on all those counts. The playback is smooth, no jitters. The user interface is snappier. And it so far hasn't produced any videos that suspiciously truncate in the middle.

I know some people say the specs on the high endurance micro SD cards should make it adequate, but my experience was pretty negative and empirically the extra speed of the SSD makes a difference I can see, whether it should according to the specs or not

 

[angus[Y]oung]

I know some people say the specs on the high endurance micro SD cards should make it adequate, but my experience was pretty negative and empirically the extra speed of the SSD makes a difference I can see, whether it should according to the specs or not

@decklan interesting results, thanks for sharing. Out of curiosity, which micro SD card were you using, and which SSD are you now using?

 

[iamnid]

@decklan interesting results, thanks for sharing. Out of curiosity, which micro SD card were you using, and which SSD are you now using?

The title says he is using the Samsung T7 SSD now.

 

[mark95476]

Thanks for the review.

I have a Samsung T7 SSD and playback is snappy, but it's jumpy when scrolling while playing back. Its kind of frustrating when I want to see the last 30 seconds or so and it jumps around. I'm sure if I pulled the SSD and played from my computer then it would be much better so it's probably Tesla's dashcam app and not the SSD.

Now that I've used both, I just wanted to post a brief review of how much better the SSD drive is. In short, it's both faster and more reliable.

The old sd card would
* stutter while viewing
* take a second to delete a clip and re-load the list of clips
* chop off the video early, often in the middle of the actual event being recorded

I haven't had the SSD very long so hopefully I'm not being too premature in this review but so far it's way better on all those counts. The playback is smooth, no jitters. The user interface is snappier. And it so far hasn't produced any videos that suspiciously truncate in the middle.

I know some people say the specs on the high endurance micro SD cards should make it adequate, but my experience was pretty negative and empirically the extra speed of the SSD makes a difference I can see, whether it should according to the specs or not

 

[angus[Y]oung]

The title says he is using the Samsung T7 SSD now.

@iamnid wow it would appear I'm not very awake this AM.

 

[AquaY]

Now that I've used both, I just wanted to post a brief review of how much better the SSD drive is. In short, it's both faster and more reliable.

The old sd card would
* stutter while viewing
* take a second to delete a clip and re-load the list of clips
* chop off the video early, often in the middle of the actual event being recorded

I haven't had the SSD very long so hopefully I'm not being too premature in this review but so far it's way better on all those counts. The playback is smooth, no jitters. The user interface is snappier. And it so far hasn't produced any videos that suspiciously truncate in the middle.

I know some people say the specs on the high endurance micro SD cards should make it adequate, but my experience was pretty negative and empirically the extra speed of the SSD makes a difference I can see, whether it should according to the specs or not

what capacity Samsung T7 SSD are you using?

500GB, 1TB, 2TB ?

 

[ZaphodBx]

Is the included USB drive generally not considered sufficient? I saw lots of threads about the storage, but it seemed like a lot predated that being included. I'm not even a week into ownership, but I'm happy to buy something that will be more reliable if the included storage is not adequite. Hopefully sentry mode get fixed soon, too...

 

[Hammerhead786]

Is the included USB drive generally not considered sufficient? I saw lots of threads about the storage, but it seemed like a lot predated that being included. I'm not even a week into ownership, but I'm happy to buy something that will be more reliable if the included storage is not adequite. Hopefully sentry mode get fixed soon, too...

It's not a capacity issue, it's more to do with the fact that the USB drive is not really designed for the number of continuous writes. This causes the drive to fail after several months of usage.

 

[GeekyDoc]

Now I'm rethinking my whole approach: how have you mounted the SSD? Is it in the glovebox? velcroed to the side? Pics would be awesome to get a sense of the setup. TIA!

 

[thesmokingman]

You can use an nvme drive too, which is ludicrously fast. I was going to slap an ssd drive into it but had a spare nvme drive already in a gen 3.2 enclosure. Its a cheapo oem 256gb nvme drive from a laptop, The enclosure was $16 from Amazon. I've got a handful of the junkers leftover from upgrades etc. Anyways thought what the hell, lets try this thing in there, and bam it works. I pulled it out and reformatted it with two exFAT partitions, one for cam and one for music. When it dies whenever that is I'll swap it for another spare. From the limited time I've used it, you'll want an enclosure that is a heatsink'd body as it gets warm to the touch.

 

[ZaphodBx]

It's not a capacity issue, it's more to do with the fact that the USB drive is not really designed for the number of continuous writes. This causes the drive to fail after several months of usage.

Thanks, I guess I'll grab something better. Too bad it's right after Prime Day.

 

[jcanoe]

Chip prices have been in flux. The current price of the SanDisk High Endurance 128GB microSD card with USB adapter is ~$34, The 256GB microSD card with USB adapter is ~$50; In comparison the current price of the Samsung T7 SSD with 512GB is ~$70.

I have been using the SanDisk USB to microSD adapter with a Samsung Pro Endurance 128GB microSD card for Dashcam recordings and Sentry Mode a full year. I have had no issues with the SanDisk USB adapter or the Samsung Pro Endurance card.

 

[decklan]

My model Y is one of the first ones so it doesn't have USB in the glove box, so I just have the drive plugged in and sitting on the bottom of that front cubby hole where the USB ports are. The drive is small so it fits easily. I bought the 512Gb because it was cheaper and I think it's plenty of capacity. I agree they should keep working on smoothing out their software for playback and browsing, but I think the SSD's speed is pretty good for the system.

I will say I ran into one performance-related problem still though: out of curiosity I turned off the "exclude home" option on senry, not realizing just how bad the system is at detecting when it should record. The next morning I had over 1000 sentry events, and the video browser couldn't manage to load the list to view. I didn't wait forever, but just reformatted the drive to erase everything.

 

[GeekyDoc]

An update for those who might be grappling with the same choice: I noticed the thumb drive failing to record or display sentry events and I tried the SSD. It seemed to work fine but when I tried to play back a clip in the car, it wouldn't even load the "directory" screen where all clips are listed. I could hear the SSD working and the LED was on solid so don't know what the issue was. Playback on the laptop was flawless. I then swapped in the samsung pro endurance card with the sandisk usb adapter and that has worked like OEM. Not too sure if I want to stick with the SSD at this point; I liked the concept and it looked like it was a more stable solution but there was some issue on my end with playback in the car.

 

[jcanoe]

Has anyone been able to play music files on the microSD card that has the /Dashcam folder for Dash cam and Sentry Mode without first creating a second partition on the device? It used to be that you had to partition the storage device.

 

[danderson404]

It's not a capacity issue, it's more to do with the fact that the USB drive is not really designed for the number of continuous writes. This causes the drive to fail after several months of usage.

Good point, I hadn't though of that when I made my purchase of the Samsung FIT 128 MB thumbdrive. I haven't received delivery yet so I guess I have time to switch out.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Saxgod]

An update for those who might be grappling with the same choice: I noticed the thumb drive failing to record or display sentry events and I tried the SSD. It seemed to work fine but when I tried to play back a clip in the car, it wouldn't even load the "directory" screen where all clips are listed. I could hear the SSD working and the LED was on solid so don't know what the issue was. Playback on the laptop was flawless. I then swapped in the samsung pro endurance card with the sandisk usb adapter and that has worked like OEM. Not too sure if I want to stick with the SSD at this point; I liked the concept and it looked like it was a more stable solution but there was some issue on my end with playback in the car.

You could hear the SSD working? Drive has nothing to hear. No moving parts.

 

[GeekyDoc]

It had a “whine” to it when connected in the glovebox. Did not do it when I connected to the laptop.

 

[Saxgod]

It had a “whine” to it when connected in the glovebox. Did not do it when I connected to the laptop.

That is definitely strange. I ended up going with a sandisk microsd that works great.


SanDisk 256GB High Endurance Video microSDXC Card with Adapter for Dash Cam and Home Monitoring Systems - C10, U3, V30, 4K UHD, Micro SD Card & MobileMate USB3.0 microSD Card Reader

 

[ellisina4]

Chip prices have been in flux. The current price of the SanDisk High Endurance 128GB microSD card with USB adapter is ~$34, The 256GB microSD card with USB adapter is ~$50; In comparison the current price of the Samsung T7 SSD with 512GB is ~$70.

I have been using the SanDisk USB to microSD adapter with a Samsung Pro Endurance 128GB microSD card for Dashcam recordings and Sentry Mode a full year. I have had no issues with the SanDisk USB adapter or the Samsung Pro Endurance card.

I have almost the same setup, Sandisk Mobilemate 3.0 SDDR-B531 and Sandisk high endurance 256Gb card... tried formatting FAT32 and exFAT on a PC and it recognizes the reader and the card but 2019 MX does not (software version 2021.4.18.2)... even the option to format USB is greyed out. Tried a jump-drive and MX recognizes it and able to format.
Any suggestions?