v10 TeslaCam- supposed to overwrite, do I even need > 16GB USB now?

[tyseft163]

I got the v10 SW update on my LR3D on 10/2/19.
I've been plagued with USB for TeslaCam issues since about August. I bought the Samsung BAR 128GB in June and partitioned/formatted it to work with TeslaCam, but after 3 months it gave the Write Speed Too Slow warning and won't work now for more than 10 minutes (if that). I had another 64GB Kingston partitioned into 32GB parts and that is now a completely currupt drive and needs to go in the trash. The best solution for me has been an old 8GB Sandisk Cruzer (I think) that was already FAT32 and required no formatting or partitioning. But, it fills now within 3 days of being inserted.

I thought v10 provided for overwriting non Sentry-saved files.
Tesla site says: To help make USB storage for our Dashcam and Sentry Mode features easier to manage, video clips taken while your vehicle is being protected by Sentry Mode will now be stored to a separate folder on your USB drive. Older clips will also be automatically deleted if you’re low on storage.

Is this not happening on my 8GB drive because the Recent Clips directory isn't >5GB, which is because the Sentry Saved directory is about 4GB?
I'm want to get a larger USB (going cheap, after all this cost in USB devices) and want to know the consensus: if this SW is going to overwrite, what size is really needed? It would seem that all the owners using 256+GB USBs, SSDs, etc are overkill with the info in v10 SW release notes.
What do you think

 

[untilcomplete]

Still useful to have a large drive to evenly wear the flash memory.

 

[terrywhite]

Automatic writhing over older clips is great. Keep in mind the smaller the drive the more frequently it will delete clips. I’d worry that with 16gb something could be overwritten before I even had a chance to review it.

 

[StellarRat]

Still useful to have a large drive to evenly wear the flash memory.

That is a commonly held belief, however, most people will die before their USB lose a significant amount of storage. The average flash can handle between 10,000 - 100,000 write/erase cycles and that would also mean writing the same place every time which will not happen unless your flash is only big enough hold what you're writing. Most people have drives that are 10+ times the size of the files that are written, so the load is spread out over time.

 

[untilcomplete]

That is a commonly held belief, however, most people will die before their USB lose a significant amount of storage. The average flash can handle between 10,000 - 100,000 write/erase cycles and that would also mean writing the same place every time which will not happen unless your flash is only big enough hold what you're writing. Most people have drives that are 10+ times the size of the files that are written, so the load is spread out over time.

This is in response to his 8-16GB drive size. Older Tesla’s are experiencing this now since their MCUs are failing due to failing flash memory.

 

[user212_nr]

I got the v10 SW update on my LR3D on 10/2/19.
But, it fills now within 3 days of being inserted.

I think this might be a bug. I got this issue just after installing an update (says I have V9 still, but was recent). I cleared the files and just put it back in today. Maybe you just need to clear the files once.

I got the v10 SW update on my LR3D on 10/2/19.
I'm want to get a larger USB (going cheap, after all this cost in USB devices) and want to know the consensus: if this SW is going to overwrite, what size is really needed?
What do you think

4GB is the size used by dashcam, so that leaves 4GB for storage, BUT, you don't save any money by purchasing < 16GB and in fact become a victim for scammers with fake drives and very old drives (even on Amazon!). I bought a drive on Amazon that was so worthless you could barely save word document

Some people are saying to go with SD cards... I don't have an opinion except I have thumb drives.

 

[tyseft163]

I think this might be a bug. I got this issue just after installing an update (says I have V9 still, but was recent). I cleared the files and just put it back in today. Maybe you just need to clear the files once.



4GB is the size used by dashcam, so that leaves 4GB for storage, BUT, you don't save any money by purchasing < 16GB and in fact become a victim for scammers with fake drives and very old drives (even on Amazon!). I bought a drive on Amazon that was so worthless you could barely save word document

Some people are saying to go with SD cards... I don't have an opinion except I have thumb drives.

I had my old 8GB Cruzer fill up in same day after this post. I've since bought a 32GB OTG USB device. It's been working for 48hrs so far. Maybe I've just had a ridiculously bad run with drives.... Probably got scammed on Amazon with the Samsung BAR...

 

[rideincircles]

I am having issues with my write speed even though my samsung is supposed to be 300 mb/s and the message I get requires 4mb/s.
It seems like there is an issue with v10 adding the other camera. Is this across the board, or do people not have issues with this?

 

[SageBrush]

Tangential, but sentry mode would be a lot easier to use if the video was marked when events occurred.

 

[El0n]

I am having issues with my write speed even though my samsung is supposed to be 300 mb/s and the message I get requires 4mb/s.
It seems like there is an issue with v10 adding the other camera. Is this across the board, or do people not have issues with this?

Have a USB that I used for 2-3 weeks without a single hiccup. Now I get the error message just like you. Started after the v10 update.

Does sentry still record with this message?

Haven’t had a chance to check.

 

[rideincircles]

Have a USB that I used for 2-3 weeks without a single hiccup. Now I get the error message just like you. Started after the v10 update.

Does sentry still record with this message?

Haven’t had a chance to check.

I cleared out my USB drive over the weekend and that didn't change anything. It still gives the error as of today.

 

[tyseft163]

I had my old 8GB Cruzer fill up in same day after this post. I've since bought a 32GB OTG USB device. It's been working for 48hrs so far. Maybe I've just had a ridiculously bad run with drives.... Probably got scammed on Amazon with the Samsung BAR...

As an update, I bought a new $12 USB OTG drive and put it on after v10 update. Haven't had any problems for ~2 weeks now.

 

[camalaio]

That is a commonly held belief, however, most people will die before their USB lose a significant amount of storage. The average flash can handle between 10,000 - 100,000 write/erase cycles and that would also mean writing the same place every time which will not happen unless your flash is only big enough hold what you're writing. Most people have drives that are 10+ times the size of the files that are written, so the load is spread out over time.

Cheap USB drives (actually even more expensive ones, I've heard) are not of the same quality as, say, internal SSDs for your computer. They often cease to function far before even 10,000 write cycles, while your internal SSD with much more critical data is held to a much higher standard.

I use a 64GB high-endurance (meant for continuous recording) microSD card through a microSD->USB adapter. It's held up just fine and allows me to gather many events before reviewing them, which I personally find valuable given that there's no way to review in the car at the moment.

Tesla has not released any specific info for Sentry behaviour or requirements, so anything on this forum will be either speculation or seemingly inconsistent anecdotes unfortunately.

 

[Kirby64]

That is a commonly held belief, however, most people will die before their USB lose a significant amount of storage. The average flash can handle between 10,000 - 100,000 write/erase cycles and that would also mean writing the same place every time which will not happen unless your flash is only big enough hold what you're writing. Most people have drives that are 10+ times the size of the files that are written, so the load is spread out over time.

Average flash today definitely CANNOT handle 10,000-100,000 write cycles. You're using crazy outdated information based on MLC (2-bit-per-cell) data or even SLC data. You'd be very lucky if you can handle 1,000 write cycles total on the average flash drive. For reference, the very latest and greatest Samsung 970 EVO drive is warrantied for 300 TBW for a 512GB model. Which is 586 full write cycles. And that's on a REALLY good SSD. The crap flash drives you get, I wouldn't be surprised if they last 100 full write cycles or less in some cases.

That means for a 16GB drive, you could get maybe 16 TBW before it's dead (assuming 1000 P/E, which is probably better than average). Which means on a car running dashcam/whatever, it'll chew, what, 4 MB/s while on and recording? That means you'll do 1000 P/E cycles in 1111 hours of recording. Or 46.3 days of continuous recording. Or ~550 days if you only record 2 hours a day. If you're using sentry mode, 2 hours is probably on the low end. Assuming low usage, you'll be replacing the flash drive once every ~2 years in BEST CASE scenario.

All of this assumes you evenly wear the flash drive (not necessarily true), the flash drive actually has 1000 P/E cycles (optimistic at best), while it's hot in your car that doesn't degrade the flash faster (it does), and Tesla continues to only use ~4 MB/s while recording (likely to go up over time as they add more cameras to sentry/dashcam).

There's a reason people say get the largest SSD possible. Let's run the math with a 256GB drive for comparison:
Assuming 1000 P/E (again, optimistic), you now get 740.8 days of continuous recording. Or around 18,000 hours. Or ~9,000 days at 2 hours a day. Or over 20 years before you have to think about replacing a flash drive.

Personally, I use a 512GB SSD connected to a USB -> SATA adapter. It's way overkill, but I don't ever have to worry about crappy flash drives dying on me and I had a spare lying around. A 512GB SSD these days is dirt cheap and a dongle to convert to USB is like $10. For $100 you can be set for the duration of your car. But hey, why bother spending $100 on a car that costs >$30k?

 

[Kirby64]

Cheap USB drives (actually even more expensive ones, I've heard) are not of the same quality as, say, internal SSDs for your computer. They often cease to function far before even 10,000 write cycles, while your internal SSD with much more critical data is held to a much higher standard.

I use a 64GB high-endurance (meant for continuous recording) microSD card through a microSD->USB adapter. It's held up just fine and allows me to gather many events before reviewing them, which I personally find valuable given that there's no way to review in the car at the moment.

Tesla has not released any specific info for Sentry behaviour or requirements, so anything on this forum will be either speculation or seemingly inconsistent anecdotes unfortunately.

For reference, even high endurance microSD cards aren't the great. Way better than the trash in most SD cards, but their specs are suspicious. Most of them define endurance as 'hours of HD video recorded' which is nebulous and not clear enough. What bit rate isn't even specified. Only the WD Purple MicroSDs call out TBW. And they only offer 1000 P/E cycles, which is average at best.

Pretty sure a large, generic 2.5" SSD is still an easier bet than bothering with high endurance microSDs. 256GB SSDs are mighty cheap these days.

 

[Glamisduner]

TRIM does not work when formatted with Fat32 and tesla computer anyways, so you won't get good wear leveling with an SSD in a tesla vs a PC anyways. That said I still went with T5 SSD. They are not expensive enough to worry about.

 

[StellarRat]

USB drive life: fact or fiction? | ZDNet

 

[SageBrush]

Interesting point about using SSD to prolong longevity. Sounds reasonable although I can remember posts in the forum telling people to NOT use SSD due to power requirements.

Perhaps a large, low power SSD is the ticket.

 

[nvx1977]

Tangential, but sentry mode would be a lot easier to use if the video was marked when events occurred.

I actually submitted this exact idea to Tesla 3 weeks ago. I recently got their template answer (thanks for the idea; we can't guarantee we implement it, but appreciate the feedback).

 

[ZOMGVTEK]

That is a commonly held belief, however, most people will die before their USB lose a significant amount of storage. The average flash can handle between 10,000 - 100,000 write/erase cycles and that would also mean writing the same place every time which will not happen unless your flash is only big enough hold what you're writing. Most people have drives that are 10+ times the size of the files that are written, so the load is spread out over time.

The cheap flash drives are not very high endurance. I’ve had a dozen or so of them fail in light duty applications within months. Dump a file on them now and then and it should last you a long time. Put it in service in some 24/7 application and it will fail very quickly.