USB for dashcam exFAT vs FAT

[PatrickCH4313]

Just after the installation of fw 2020.8.2, I re-formatted my SDD card (MS-DOS FAT (32) under MAC OS) and my Dashcam / Sentrymode is working again. I already downloaded some videos and was able to view them. No more error message

 

[PatrickCH4313]

Error message shows up one day later !

 

[JulienW]

Just updated to 8.3 last night and have a new exFAT formatted SSD waiting to plug in. Has exFAT support been removed after 8.1?

 

[CK123]

all you need is here: Formatted TeslaCam USB Drives, Tesla Videos, Tips & Tricks - Pure Tesla

 

[TX_M3P+]

I found this to be a good source for getting TeslaCam setup and working:
Preparing your Drive – Tesla Dashcam Advice, Recommendations and more!

This other page on the same site provides a few apps for various OS's that can be used for viewing the footage as well:
Viewing Video – Tesla Dashcam Advice, Recommendations and more!

 

[hun]

Just used the new 'FORMAT USB DEVICE' feature after the 2020.16.2.1 update. The car formatted my SD card to exFAT. I plugged in an old device formatted to FAT32. Both work.

 

[mcorf]

I just bought a Samsung T7 SSD. I tried using both the car to format and my Mac. Set up the TeslaCam folder just like on my thumb drive(which still works), and I get the dash cam with the red light inside but it won't record anything. I tried both exFAT and FAT32 and neither work. If my device has a password set could that cause this ? Thanks.

 

[neurocutie]

somewhere I read that in addition to FAT32 and exFAT, the ext4 filesystem format is also useable...
1) is this true? 2) might the ext4 filesystem be a bit more robust than FAT32, since it is a journaling FS?

I am getting frequent corruption of the FAT32-formatted uSD card I'm currently using.

Another thought I had was using an SSD drive rather than a USB uSD. Should SSDs be more robust? I have some micro SATA drives lying around.

 

[Knightshade]

I honestly dunno what folks are doing to end up with corrupt drives... my Samsung USB key went 18 months, FAT32, 0 problems ever. after the original formatting (using Rufus in windows).

I mean, it's still fine today (almost 2 years later) but I was a beta tester for Navaks 2nd gen splitter which includes a built in SDcard reader to add an additional USB port so it did get time off after the 18 months.

The car only writes at 2MB/s- which is many times slower than any modern USB storage should be capable of regardless of physical form factor.

 

[neurocutie]

I honestly dunno what folks are doing to end up with corrupt drives... my Samsung USB key went 18 months, FAT32, 0 problems ever. after the original formatting (using Rufus in windows).

I dunno either but would love to know... I've tried at least six different USB sticks and uSD cards and they all get corrupted, usually within days.

My current thought is that it maybe related to the USB/uSD adapter though I've tried several...

 

[Occar]

somewhere I read that in addition to FAT32 and exFAT, the ext4 filesystem format is also useable...
1) is this true? 2) might the ext4 filesystem be a bit more robust than FAT32, since it is a journaling FS?

I am getting frequent corruption of the FAT32-formatted uSD card I'm currently using.

Another thought I had was using an SSD drive rather than a USB uSD. Should SSDs be more robust? I have some micro SATA drives lying around.

It was previously true, but they disabled that feature a few releases ago.

Yes, ext4 is superior to exfat in this application because it is a journaled file system which makes it more resilient to unexpected interruptions (such as if the power to the drive were unexpectedly cut mid-write like an accident may do or if it is pulled mid write). It’s a moot point now though. Once they added the onboard format feature it stopped writing to ext4 (though for 1 version after that it would still read from ext4 for the built in viewer, but that changed too).

exFAT is slightly better than FAT32 since it has a mirrored FAT but that only protects against media issues in the FAT.

 

[sduck]

I'm using ext4 for my music drive - it seems to catalog faster, and works more reliably at remembering where the music is between power cycles.

 

[TX_M3P+]

I dunno either but would love to know... I've tried at least six different USB sticks and uSD cards and they all get corrupted, usually within days.

My current thought is that it maybe related to the USB/uSD adapter though I've tried several...

Faulty HW could be the issue. Since you have quite a few "bad" flash drives, hook one up to your PC and format it and use it for a few days and see if you get the same results. If it work reliably in the PC but fails in the car then that could indicate some kind of HW issue in the car.

 

[neurocutie]

Faulty HW could be the issue. Since you have quite a few "bad" flash drives, hook one up to your PC and format it and use it for a few days and see if you get the same results. If it work reliably in the PC but fails in the car then that could indicate some kind of HW issue in the car.

That's pretty much what I've been doing... drive gets corrupted after a few days, bring back to PC, reformat, repeat.... once in a while, try a different drive, same pattern.

I've switched out the usb/uSD adapter now, trying another one (probably the 3rd I've tried).... we'll see if it is better.

 

[RScottyL]

I suggest not using a USB stick but instead a high speed write microSD card as USB sticks are not meant to do continuous writes.

On top of this, you would want to be looking for an "endurance" or "high endurance" micro SD card!

 

[neurocutie]

I honestly dunno what folks are doing to end up with corrupt drives... my Samsung USB key went 18 months, FAT32, 0 problems ever. after the original formatting (using Rufus in windows).

Just to report back that, after swapping out the USB/uSD adapter for another, it seems much better. After a week of usage, no corruption yet and Sentry is still doing its thing. So I guess (not surprisingly) the quality of the uSD adapter is an important factor...

 

[SemiS3XYR]

I didn't know tesla now supports exFAT.

I forgot about that before you need to create a Teslacam folder.

Do you still need to do that now? I just formatted a microsd ExFAT and plugged into our X and forgot about the folder.

I'm not with my car right now to check but this came to mind. Hoping someone can confirm. TIA

 

[iamnid]

I didn't know tesla now supports exFAT.

I forgot about that before you need to create a Teslacam folder.

Do you still need to do that now? I just formatted a microsd ExFAT and plugged into our X and forgot about the folder.

I'm not with my car right now to check but this came to mind. Hoping someone can confirm. TIA

With the ability to format in the car now - you're right -- you don't have to do any of that stuff. You no longer have to worry about format or to put a particular folder on the drive. Just pop it in, hit "format" in the car and it will work.

 

[Kevy Baby]

With the ability to format in the car now - you're right -- you don't have to do any of that stuff. You no longer have to worry about format or to put a particular folder on the drive. Just pop it in, hit "format" in the car and it will work.

Unless you have a larger drive and want to partition it. Then you have to do that offline.