TeslaCam: Don’t use USB flash drive

[1.21GW]

Using flash drives for TeslaCam is not a good idea because they can’t stand the temperature and the constant use with sentry mode.

What should be used? Endurance MicroSD card with USB adapter. Instead of explaining, here is a YouTube video. USB flash drives can work for a while, but this path will be cheaper and have better performance over the long run.

 

[jdw]

I've been using the Endurance MicroSD cards in DashCam applications for a while and also use them in TeslaCam - they're reliable and work very well, but nice find on the SanDisk adapter! Thank you!

 

[GalaxySurfer]

Using flash drives for TeslaCam is not a good idea because they can’t stand the temperature and the constant use with sentry mode.

What should be used? Endurance MicroSD card with USB adapter. Instead of explaining, here is a YouTube video. USB flash drives can work for a while, but this path will be cheaper and have better performance over the long run.

Great tip! Since you use all your ports, you might wanna consider one of these. (It is a "data" hub)

 

[jebinc]

Using flash drives for TeslaCam is not a good idea because they can’t stand the temperature and the constant use with sentry mode.

What should be used? Endurance MicroSD card with USB adapter. Instead of explaining, here is a YouTube video. USB flash drives can work for a while, but this path will be cheaper and have better performance over the long run.

Thanks, I'm in!

 

[jebinc]

Great tip! Since you use all your ports, you might wanna consider one of these. (It is a "data" hub)View attachment 432247

I went with this data hub - works great, fits great.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PH2WXKT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[sduck]

My little sandisk ssd has survived 6 months, including a road trip in this recent heat wave.

(I had that Sabrent hub for a while, but it conked out. That Anker one is still going strong though)

 

[StealthP3D]

I've been using one of these for the last couple of weeks with good results:



500 GB of very fast storage for under $80. It has a single port on it (USB-C) and it came with two cords about 18" in length, one USB-C to USB-C that I use in the fast USB-C port of my laptop and a USB-C to USB port that I plug into the Tesla USB port. Interestingly, it is the perfect thickness to also plug into the USB to USB-C cord that came with my Model 3 so this sweet little unit can be plugged into the phone dock with one hand if you want.

 

[mswlogo]

My flash drive has run fine since TeslaCam was available.

 

[StealthP3D]

My flash drive has run fine since TeslaCam was available.

We started out using two Sandisk USB Cruzer memory sticks. The 32GB in my wife's car and the 128GB in my car. The 32 GB is still going strong, the 128 GB unit croaked, it became permanently write-protected and had to be thrown in the trash.

I don't know if it's my imagination or not but the image quality seems a little better on the new 500GB SSD. The images just seem crisper but it's probably my imagination. Unless the Cruzer sticks were too slow and that was causing issues. It doesn't seem like this could be the case but my eyes seem to be telling me differently.

 

[1.21GW]

The SSDs also work well, they are just more expensive and bulkier than the microSD option.

 

[Glamisduner]

This again? It shouldn't really matter whst you use. A 256gb usb sick should work for years for sentry mode and dash cam. By the time a high endurance micro sd is proving it's worth a new usb drive well likely cost less than 1/2 what it does now.

 

[jebinc]

This again? It shouldn't really matter whst you use. A 256gb usb sick should work for years for sentry mode and dash cam. By the time a high endurance micro sd is proving it's worth a new usb drive well likely cost less than 1/2 what it does now.

Good point. I canceled my order.

 

[Knightshade]

Using flash drives for TeslaCam is not a good idea because they can’t stand the temperature and the constant use with sentry mode.

What should be used? Endurance MicroSD card with USB adapter.

This is simply not true.

There's many USB drives with exactly the same temp ratings as SD cards.

And the "constant use" bit has also been repeatedly debunked here, with math, a bunch of times. Get a large enough drive and even the cheapest USB flash key will take 5-10 years for a 128GB drive or 10-20 years for a 256GB one to hit its minimum rated # of write cycles.

have better performance

The Tesla is writing to the drive 5-10 times slower than the slowest USB drive out there, so performance is utterly irrelevant to this application.


IIRC that specific video you posted has been debunked for the above items in previous threads already.

I mean, an Endurance SD card will work fine of course- but so will a larger cheap regular USB key. If you need the math why see the numerous other threads on this.

 

[jdw]

The difference in price is small, why not use a SD card designed for high temperature, high bandwidth, high write cycle video applications? Why risk having a cheap USB thumb drive crap out when you most need it? BlackVue and ThinkWare dashcams eat unrated SD cards in a week or two, and, admittedly, TeslaCam is nowhere near the data rates of a real dashcam, but still, why go there to save $20.

Also, the SanDisk adapter the 1.21GW mentioned is a little more "stealth" than a thumb drive hanging out of the slot, which is itself, an invitation to break in and steal something, especially once word about TeslaCam gets out among smash and grab artists.

 

[Knightshade]

The difference in price is small, why not use a SD card designed for high temperature

Because lots of USB keys are also designed for exactly the same temps?

, high bandwidth

Because the actual use doesn't require anything approaching high bandwidth?

It'd be like saying "Why NOT buy a ferrari to drive around the corner"

It's more money for literally no benefit

, high write cycle video applications?

Same.

Even the cheapest 128GB USB key will take 5-10 years in typical Tesla dashcam/sentry use to hit the rated # of write cycles. Or 10-20 years for a 256GB key.

Why risk having a cheap USB thumb drive crap out when you most need it?

Because the risk is largely imaginary?

BlackVue and ThinkWare dashcams eat unrated SD cards in a week or two, and, admittedly, TeslaCam is nowhere near the data rates of a real dashcam, but still, why go there to save $20.

You just told us why. This application is an order of magnitude less demanding.

Also, the SanDisk adapter the 1.21GW mentioned is a little more "stealth" than a thumb drive hanging out of the slot, which is itself, an invitation to break in and steal something, especially once word about TeslaCam gets out among smash and grab artists.

Also not really true.

Samsungs 128/256GB FIT drives for example are just as tiny if not moreso... AND rated for the same high heat conditions and whatnot. (and they're hardly the only maker of such tiny USB drives)



Don't get me wrong- SDcards work fine. But the point is so does virtually anything else so long as it's sufficient size... (I'd say 128GB is your best bang/buck generally, and likely to outlast the average period of car ownership even on a cheap model)

 

[jdw]

Lots of evidence people are having issues * with random USB thumb drives*, but I'd agree on using at least USB 3 and 128 GB capacity - whatever format you decide on.

USB drives - suggestions, issues, formatting, partitioning
TeslaCAM, Dashcam stops working after two 2 hour drives : teslamotors
USB Flash Drives for Tesla Dashcam | TeslaTap
Best USB Drive for Tesla DashCam and Sentry Mode - Pure Tesla

 

[Knightshade]

Lots of evidence people are having issues * with random USB thumb drives*

But they're having most of the same issues with every other type too.

Even folks running SSDs are having sentry video corruption and everything else your links describe.

It's a software issue, not a hardware one.


The only "hardware" issue I've seen is folks who were using 8 or 16GB ancient USB keys back when sentry didn't exist and teslacam was only recording 1 camera.

Then they went to 3 cameras, plus sentry, and on a tiny stick ate up all their writes in short order. That's not format though, that's math. A large key/card/whatever solves that entirely.

, but I'd agree on using at least USB 3

The ports on the car are 2.0. So for dashcam this doesn't matter at all except it might take you a second or too less to transfer them when plugged into a PC I guess

For a music drive I'd insure it's 3.1 just because it can otherwise take a while to load 100-200+ GB of music from the PC to the drive, but after that it's no help there either.

and 128 GB capacity - whatever format you decide on.

Yeah- 128GB gets you the 5-10 years I mentioned (I think it averaged out to like 7.something years last time I ran the math for using the car like 10 hours a day (2 hours driving and 8 hours sentry); 256GB will put you into decades, or a comparable amount if you say don't own a garage and expect you might need something approaching 24/7 recording.

 

[srs5694]

The only "hardware" issue I've seen is folks who were using 8 or 16GB ancient USB keys back when sentry didn't exist and teslacam was only recording 1 camera.

FWIW, I had a problem with a SanDisk 256GB USB drive I bought for my Tesla. It lasted about a month before it turned itself into a read-only device. This wasn't a filesystem fault; the device refused to accept any reads, to either partition (music or TeslaCam) or to the partition table. Such problems are not uncommon with flash memory; I've seen other USB drives, SD cards, etc., fail in the same way, even in more typical use cases. This one failed unusually quickly, though, at least for a brand-name device. (OTOH, maybe it was a counterfeit. I did buy it on eBay.)

That said, I mostly agree with you, Knightshade. The format of the flash media (USB flash drive, SD card, SSD, etc.) per se isn't important. There are differences in general quality and tolerance for heat and other factors that are important for a TeslaCam device. I don't know if higher-tolerance devices are more common in one format or another, but it's probably worth searching for a device that can work in high and low temperatures and, all other things being equal, is rated for more writes.

 

[CoolBuddy]

I picked up a micro SD card and USB adapter today and can't get it to work. I formatted to FAT32 and put a TeslaCam folder on it, but I either get the camera with the grey X right off the bat or no camera icon at all. I ordered the SanDisk adapter today in the hopes it's just the cheap adapter

 

[1.21GW]

I picked up a micro SD card and USB adapter today and can't get it to work. I formatted to FAT32 and put a TeslaCam folder on it, but I either get the camera with the grey X right off the bat or no camera icon at all. I ordered the SanDisk adapter today in the hopes it's just the cheap adapter

good luck, The only hard part for me was getting the FAT32 format by using some 3rd party formatter. Mine has been working great!

To all the others, I posted this because I have gone through 2 USB drives so far, they eventually turn into read only devices and I need to trash them. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I'll see how this goes and report back after a while.