Sentry Mode filling my USB flash drive extremely quick

[Knightshade]

Incorrect statement, slow drives will melt and stop working, by only extreme edition drives above 50Mbs to make this work. and "especially" If you plan to later us it with TeslaCam

well that's complete nonsense.

There's nothing about "slow" that causes things to melt.

50mb/s is literally over 30x faster than the car actually writes to the drive for teslacam.

 

[Dinoraptor101]

well that's complete nonsense.

There's nothing about "slow" that causes things to melt.

50mb/s is literally over 30x faster than the car actually writes to the drive for teslacam.

Hello, pardon my horrific typos as I was using a smartphone, allow me to explain my short story.
my Tesla melted several USB Flash sticks from Sandisk 2x 32GB and 1x micro-size 64GB. I was using Sentry Mode and DashCam nearly ALWAYS. this upset me ofcourse and I started looking for answers in forums, and sorry in advance since I did not save any links to provide.... but here are some points I leared.

* When you use a normal flash (stick) drive. the writing speed by Tesla is faster than the USB, so you end up with chopy recording, because Tesla records on-the-fly with virtually no buffer.
* It is highly likely that DashCam / Sentry Mode uses the drive itself as the buffer, which is why all videos are recorded always, and when you click the "dashcam save" button then they move over to "saved videos" folder. the recent videos folder will keep overwriting itself after the flash drive reaches max cap.
* purchasing and formatting an Extreme Pro SSD with fat 32, and purchasing a portable hard drive with fat32 FS. both worked with no issues.

Flash Stick Drives are intended to store data, but are not intended for constant writing of data, and especially not 30mbps. the flash drive will melt. try it and see.

Also to clarify when I say Melt, I don't mean the plastic will deform I mean the USB will corrupt, become too hot to even touch, will smell, and never work again.

Sorry for long post.

 

[Knightshade]

* When you use a normal flash (stick) drive. the writing speed by Tesla is faster than the USB, so you end up with chopy recording, because Tesla records on-the-fly with virtually no buffer.

That is simply false.

The cams record at 1.5 MB/s

The slowest USB 2.0 sticks on the market are roughly 3-4 times faster than that for writing, and average ones are much faster than that.

* It is highly likely that DashCam / Sentry Mode uses the drive itself as the buffer, which is why all videos are recorded always, and when you click the "dashcam save" button then they move over to "saved videos" folder. the recent videos folder will keep overwriting itself after the flash drive reaches max cap.

Sure. That's true regardless of storage used though.

* purchasing and formatting an Extreme Pro SSD with fat 32, and purchasing a portable hard drive with fat32 FS. both worked with no issues.

And so has using regular USB sticks for tons of users, myself included. So has using regular SDcards for tons of users too.

By the same token- folks with both kinds and with SSDs have had failures with corrupt video files (especially side repeaters in sentry mode).

It's a software problem not a hardware one

Flash Stick Drives are intended to store data, but are not intended for constant writing of data, and especially not 30mbps

Not sure where you got that number, but the camera don't write anywhere near that fast.

It writes 30 mb per minute not per second, and that's per camera.

30/60= 0.5 megs per second per camera.

or 1.5 megs per second total. Not 30.

. the flash drive will melt. try it and see.

Again- tons of people have, and it works just fine, because your math is completely wrong.


I was using a cheap 32GB USB flash drive for months when it was just the dash cam. Worked fine.

Once Sentry came along I kept using it initially, but since it does not overwrite sentry activation I switched to a 128GB key, which itself has run flawless for 2 months now.

When I think the larger drive might be getting full-ish, I swap the 32GB one back in for a day or two until I can review the big key and clear out space....the old one still works fine too.

 

[Dinoraptor101]

That is simply false.

The cams record at 1.5 MB/s

The slowest USB 2.0 sticks on the market are roughly 3-4 times faster than that for writing, and average ones are much faster than that.




Sure. That's true regardless of storage used though.




And so has using regular USB sticks for tons of users, myself included. So has using regular SDcards for tons of users too.

By the same token- folks with both kinds and with SSDs have had failures with corrupt video files (especially side repeaters in sentry mode).

It's a software problem not a hardware one




Not sure where you got that number, but the camera don't write anywhere near that fast.

It writes 30 mb per minute not per second, and that's per camera.

30/60= 0.5 megs per second per camera.

or 1.5 megs per second total. Not 30.




Again- tons of people have, and it works just fine, because your math is completely wrong.


I was using a cheap 32GB USB flash drive for months when it was just the dash cam. Worked fine.

Once Sentry came along I kept using it initially, but since it does not overwrite sentry activation I switched to a 128GB key, which itself has run flawless for 2 months now.

When I think the larger drive might be getting full-ish, I swap the 32GB one back in for a day or two until I can review the big key and clear out space....the old one still works fine too.

Out of curiosity this makes me think my car has hardware fault, which year and model is your Tesla?

 

[Knightshade]

Out of curiosity this makes me think my car has hardware fault, which year and model is your Tesla?

2018 Model 3

 

[alseTrick]

I sure would love to review and delete my Sentry footage right from the touchscreen and maybe never even have to remove the usb drive

I would sure love to know which file(s) have the footage instead of having to search through multiple files every time an "event" occurs, too. It's a p.i.t.a. to go through it. And it takes forever*. Due to the parking situation at my apartment and at work I have a lot of recorded events.

*ALSO: My "right repeater" recordings are crap. They're almost ALWAYS corrupted and won't play, and even when they aren't the video quality is horrible (green screen, choppy, half the screen missing, etc).

 

[japhule]

I would sure love to know which file(s) have the footage instead of having to search through multiple files every time an "event" occurs, too. It's a p.i.t.a. to go through it. And it takes forever*. Due to the parking situation at my apartment and at work I have a lot of recorded events.

*ALSO: My "right repeater" recordings are crap. They're almost ALWAYS corrupted and won't play, and even when they aren't the video quality is horrible (green screen, choppy, half the screen missing, etc).

The event that triggers the sentry mode save is usually in the last minute or 2. I find the event almost always in the 2nd to last minute file.

 

[alseTrick]

The event that triggers the sentry mode save is usually in the last minute or 2. I find the event almost always in the 2nd to last minute file.

I've noticed that. But with there being multiple camera angles recording simultaneously, plus the high frequency of recorded events, it takes forever to go through the files. For every "event" notification that appears on my screen when I enter my car, I probably have 10 separate recordings (not the 10-minutes per event, but actually 10 separate 10-minute events).

Over the course of a week, that's a boatload of files. And then you have to remember to take the drive out once you actually get home from work, or the store, or wherever, and then put it back in the next time you drive. I fully understand it's a first world problem, but it's a pita nonetheless.

It simply isn't convenient.

 

[Dinoraptor101]

well that's complete nonsense.

There's nothing about "slow" that causes things to melt.

50mb/s is literally over 30x faster than the car actually writes to the drive for teslacam.

Hi before you act like a jerk and start claiming my info false I urge you next time do some research.

Here is the recommended minimum speed for a USB stick for Teslacam and Sentry mode from Teslatap.com

You're welcome by the way. Please be safe and use the CORRECT USB drives for this function.
=======
Write Speed: 40 MB/s or better – as you get slower, the drive cannot keep up with the images being written and the drive may crash, hang or distort the images.
=========

Source: USB Flash Drives for Tesla Dashcam | TeslaTap

 

[japhule]

I've noticed that. But with there being multiple camera angles recording simultaneously, plus the high frequency of recorded events, it takes forever to go through the files. For every "event" notification that appears on my screen when I enter my car, I probably have 10 separate recordings (not the 10-minutes per event, but actually 10 separate 10-minute events).

Over the course of a week, that's a boatload of files. And then you have to remember to take the drive out once you actually get home from work, or the store, or wherever, and then put it back in the next time you drive. I fully understand it's a first world problem, but it's a pita nonetheless.

It simply isn't convenient.

I would recommend using one of the many tools out there that lets you review your footage together like Sentry Keeper.
Sentry Keeper- free windows software to manage your Sentry videos

I'm personally using the raspberry pi for my car storage so my footage gets copied up to my NAS and cleared from storage as soon as I get home.

 

[Knightshade]

Hi before you act like a jerk and start claiming my info false I urge you next time do some research.

I suggest you do so.

Since your info was, in fact, false.

I even cited the math proving it.

here it is yet again-

Each camera records about 1.8 GB of data per hour.

Which is about 30 megs per minute.

Which is about....0.5 MB per second.

times 3 cameras that has the system recording at.... 1.5MB per second.

Which is why saying you "need" something that records at 40 MB/sec is nonsense.

Here is the recommended minimum speed for a USB stick for Teslacam and Sentry mode from Teslatap.com

Uh- you realize that's just a random suggestion by a website not actually connected to Tesla, right?

No, apparently not.


Don't get me wrong- they have some good info there.

They also have some info that's outdated (your link for example mentions recording ~2GB for an hour- that's when it was just dashcam and just 1 camera, it's now about 5.4GB/hour)....

They also have some info that is them just (sometimes educated and sometimes randomly) guessing at things.

One way you can tell they are guessing- on the same page they say you want a minimum of 40MB/sec they also say

The USB version does not matter in the Tesla

Which is weird- because even "fast" USB 2.0 keys are typically slower than 40MB/sec.

In fact, since the Tesla ports are only USB2, they can't actually go much faster than that...

(theoretical max speed on USB2 bus is 60MB/sec, theoretical max from an actual USB key is 53MB/sec....and real world it's nearer 42 max with 30-40 being the high end of actual real world speeds for USB2 drives)


They're right USB2 doesn't hurt you though- since again, 1.5MB/sec is how fast the car is actually writing so even 5-10MB/sec is more than fast enough, and most drives are faster than that.

You're welcome by the way. Please be safe and use the CORRECT USB drives for this function.

Which is- literally any USB drive.

Because again, the drive is being written to at 1.5 MB/Sec. You can tell by just checking the size of the files it writes per minute

So suggesting you "need" 40 MB/Sec is factually wrong.


The corruption issues folks have reported were initially, wrongly, thought to be about drive speed- that's when TT put that page up and hasn't corrected it since.

But folks have continued to report similar issues with very fast USB sticks, very fast SD cards, and even SSDs.



it's a software problem, not a hardware one.

 

[minsup23]

My understanding is that Sentry saves videos when someone comes within 2 ft. of the car and never overwrites like TeslaCam does so if a lot of people are passing close by the car then you will fill up the drive faster, Sentry has to be manually activated each time though so it does not activate automatically.

I can see an update that would activate Sentry based on GPS location would be useful but not sure they would ever do that.

Are you sure that is the case? I have a 64 gb high endurance microSD card with a USB 3.0 card reader by Anker. It filled up in 2.5 weeks. I am going through the Saved folder footage and the front camera is literally recording a bush and there is nothing on the left and right repeater cameras. I get nervous about deleting a bunch of files at once in fear there was something that captured something suspicious.

How are other people managing their SD cards?

 

[Knightshade]

Are you sure that is the case? I have a 64 gb high endurance microSD card with a USB 3.0 card reader by Anker. It filled up in 2.5 weeks.

It was the case almost 3 months ago when that post was made.

Now there's more options for Sentry automatically turning on most or all of the time as you prefer.

I am going through the Saved folder footage and the front camera is literally recording a bush and there is nothing on the left and right repeater cameras.

It saves the last 10 minutes when it goes to alert mode- so usually the last 1 or 2 minutes has "something" moving on one of the cameras, and then you get 8-9 previous minutes of nothing.

 

[minsup23]

It saves the last 10 minutes when it goes to alert mode- so usually the last 1 or 2 minutes has "something" moving on one of the cameras, and then you get 8-9 previous minutes of nothing.

This is a huge time saver! Thanks man!!

 

[Dinoraptor101]

I suggest you do so.

Since your info was, in fact, false.

I even cited the math proving it.

here it is yet again-

Each camera records about 1.8 GB of data per hour.

Which is about 30 megs per minute.

Which is about....0.5 MB per second.

times 3 cameras that has the system recording at.... 1.5MB per second.

Which is why saying you "need" something that records at 40 MB/sec is nonsense.




Uh- you realize that's just a random suggestion by a website not actually connected to Tesla, right?

No, apparently not.


Don't get me wrong- they have some good info there.

They also have some info that's outdated (your link for example mentions recording ~2GB for an hour- that's when it was just dashcam and just 1 camera, it's now about 5.4GB/hour)....

They also have some info that is them just (sometimes educated and sometimes randomly) guessing at things.

One way you can tell they are guessing- on the same page they say you want a minimum of 40MB/sec they also say



Which is weird- because even "fast" USB 2.0 keys are typically slower than 40MB/sec.

In fact, since the Tesla ports are only USB2, they can't actually go much faster than that...

(theoretical max speed on USB2 bus is 60MB/sec, theoretical max from an actual USB key is 53MB/sec....and real world it's nearer 42 max with 30-40 being the high end of actual real world speeds for USB2 drives)


They're right USB2 doesn't hurt you though- since again, 1.5MB/sec is how fast the car is actually writing so even 5-10MB/sec is more than fast enough, and most drives are faster than that.






Which is- literally any USB drive.

Because again, the drive is being written to at 1.5 MB/Sec. You can tell by just checking the size of the files it writes per minute

So suggesting you "need" 40 MB/Sec is factually wrong.


The corruption issues folks have reported were initially, wrongly, thought to be about drive speed- that's when TT put that page up and hasn't corrected it since.

But folks have continued to report similar issues with very fast USB sticks, very fast SD cards, and even SSDs.



it's a software problem, not a hardware one.

Okay, im not for arguing, my experience was I burned 100$ worth of usb sticks and now I run on portable hard drives with no issues. At this point your statement maybe true depending on the firmware version.. I experienced this when I had v9 2019.8.3.1

 

[njsrikar]

I learned this the hard way today .

I was at the mall with my wife when I got sentry notifications on my phone. At first I thought they might be false alarms but wanted to check out the car anyways.

I walked to the car immediately and found someone knocked my Tesla in the parking lot and ran away. They left a blank white sheet under the wipers (for onlookers maybe).

I was looking forward to find the culprit caught in sentry videos. But those hopes disappeared when I sat in the car and noticed the dashcam icon was not present. Upon connecting to the computer I found videos up until 4pm today. The accident happened at 6pm. There was only 93mb free space in the 64gb USB I used.

Now am thinking of setting up a raspi.