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Sentry USB drive recommendation

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Can someone please tell me which drive to buy as a present for my buddy who takes delivery of his M3 next week? Thanks!

The maths says that 128GB Endurance Micro SD cards are specified for equivalent of around 1 year sentry 24/7. They are designed for video recording. If you don't use sentry 24/7, they will last longer. Non Endurance drives will last a certain number of rewrite cycles and with the hammering that TeslaCam gives them, are not likely to last as long, possibly significantly less. The size of the media also makes a difference, with larger media cycling less often. 128MB was the sweetspot between price/lifespan.

The length of warranty is not really the issue, but the card failing without you knowing may well be if you needed the footage that it failed to record.

A Micro SD card will also need a USB reader.

I have a couple of 128MB Sandisk Endurance drives that I use to rotate, but probably not so useful now that we have in built viewer.

Looks like the new Max Endurance cards are even more robust - 6 x that of the High Endurance version.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Endurance-Monitoring-Dashcams-MicroSDXC/dp/B07NY23WBG?th=1

I cannot guarantee the authenticity of the above - it was just a indicative search. Make sure you buy from a reputable seller. Many fakes out there.
 
The maths says that 128GB Endurance Micro SD cards are specified for equivalent of around 1 year sentry 24/7. They are designed for video recording. If you don't use sentry 24/7, they will last longer. Non Endurance drives will last a certain number of rewrite cycles and with the hammering that TeslaCam gives them, are not likely to last as long, possibly significantly less. The size of the media also makes a difference, with larger media cycling less often. 128MB was the sweetspot between price/lifespan.

The length of warranty is not really the issue, but the card failing without you knowing may well be if you needed the footage that it failed to record.

A Micro SD card will also need a USB reader.

I have a couple of 128MB Sandisk Endurance drives that I use to rotate, but probably not so useful now that we have in built viewer.

Looks like the new Max Endurance cards are even more robust - 6 x that of the High Endurance version.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Endurance-Monitoring-Dashcams-MicroSDXC/dp/B07NY23WBG?th=1

I cannot guarantee the authenticity of the above - it was just a indicative search. Make sure you buy from a reputable seller. Many fakes out there.

I’ve just received one of the Max Endurance 128 Gb cards from that location and it looks original. I’ve paired it with with an Integral micro sd USB 3.1/3.0 reader. Can’t say how good it is though as I don’t pick the M3 up until next week. I’ve ordered a USB hub, but it may not arrive for a while so I’ll just connect it to the USB-A port for the time being.

I’ve formatted it to FAT32 and it seems fine.

I was looking at a Roadie, but I’ve spent too much on accessories already and it’s quite a bit more and potentially long delivery times.
 
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Too late for the OP, but I went with a 500GB Samsung T5 SSD. Cost me around £80, may well be overkill but I bought it on the assumption that more functionality will be released in the coming months / years that might need more high speed storage space.
+1 on the Samsung T5 SSD. Rock solid for 14 months now. Worth the investment, imo, as the constant write cycles and read/write performance is demanding for the 9 cameras. Yes the endurance drives are better than standard SD cards, but still not the same as an actual SSD. For the small price increase you will have something that lasts years. My T5 is actually close to 4 years old already and was previously used for cloning my Macbook Pro. Still functions like new. I'm not sure if the Tesla or SD cards support Trim, but this is also important for longevity and the T5 can benefit from TRIM support.
 
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Current sustained recording speed is around 4MB/sec and certainly on pre USB-C fitted vehicles, everything was USB-2. So pretty much every recent media device is capable of these speeds and much more.
Poorly phrased by me posting whilst in a Teams meeting :D My driver for the purchase was firstly a SSD is generally seen as very reliable for long term use, and secondly that more future functionality may require more space - ignore the high speed bit of my sentence.
 
+1 on the Samsung T5 SSD. Rock solid for 14 months now. Worth the investment, imo, as the constant write cycles and read/write performance is demanding for the 9 cameras. Yes the endurance drives are better than standard SD cards, but still not the same as an actual SSD. For the small price increase you will have something that lasts years. My T5 is actually close to 4 years old already and was previously used for cloning my Macbook Pro. Still functions like new. I'm not sure if the Tesla or SD cards support Trim, but this is also important for longevity and the T5 can benefit from TRIM support.

How do you get 9 cameras? I only get 4 recoding!
Front
Back
Left repeater
Right repeater
 
How do you get 9 cameras? I only get 4 recoding!
Front
Back
Left repeater
Right repeater
According to the Tesla website there are eight on the outside:
Capture.JPG

Plus isn't there one on the inside that's disabled by default?
 
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Not all of those cameras are (currently) recorded to the TeslaCam USB drive. Only the front, rear and left/right repeaters (indicators) are recorded.
Sure, while true at this point things can change in the future. The internal cabin camera is a VERY likely candidate in the short term. So the idea was to be prepared for the long term. Even the current 4 cameras constantly doing write operations to an SD card is very demanding and therefore why I went with an SSD T5 from Samsung.
 
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