The normal dash cam mode rewrites every 2GB I think? So I guess Sentry Mode is the one that's truly occupying. Anyway, lets hear it!
I have a 128GB but two partitions one for music the other for dashcam. Originally made dashcam 16GB because that was enough, but will have to repartition it bigger because of sentry mode and the additional 2 side cameras.
We have 2 of these Lightning/USB 128g flash drives for each of our cars (MS & M3) to swap out when reviewing/deleting files. Very happy with this setup. I posted this Video: (Product links in YouTube Description) View Tesla Sentry Mode & TeslaCam Video on your iPhone
my USB's are always getting corrupted within a few hours/days of being inserted into my Tesla... is there something specific i need to be looking for in a USB drive for it to work properly for dashcam/sentry duty?
Same here. I have this drive: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TKFCYP0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 At least half the time, there is no recording icon, so the car just doesn't seem to be communicating with the drive or it's corrupt. I've reformatted it numerous times using Disk Utility on my Mac (FAT format, single partition, disk name TESLACAM, one folder named TeslaCam). Don't know what else to try. They need to get this camera recording out of beta mode.
So is mine. I’ve gone through 3 usb drives already. All 32gb. The first one just died completely. Second one went corrupt. Third one write protected itself. I’ve read that a USB can only go through an write and erase cycle not that many times. I’d like to try a SSD. I’m not a computer guy. How do you guys format a SSD to FAT32?
my only issue is that when my tesla model 3 is parked I get a lot of the right_repeater video not being recorded, they appear to be marked as corrupt (ie no video). But the right_repeater does record video when I am driving I am can view those just fine later on. Anyone else have an actual fix for this, if so please post what flash drive or SSD you are using. I think Tesla is aware of the issue, just dont know ETA when software update will be fixed.
256 SanDisk Ultra Fit - TeslaCam Partition: 200 GB - Music Partition: 50 GB* *Currently debating reformatting / removing the music partition since I stream from Spotify most of the time. This USB has also crashed at least 3-4 times since installing it. I've come back to my car to see the dash cam icon with an X. Removing and plugging back in usually does the trick, but it's unreliable. Long term solution is to get an actual dash cam for front/rear recording + SSD.
You could always use bigger ones- the limitation is the disk formatting tool build into Windows won't do FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB. Tons of 3rd party format utilities will do so though. Both USB keys and SSD use the same general storage tech- flash memory. (the more expensive SSDs use a better quality of flash though). Any given flash drive (USB, SDcard, SSD, etc) is rated for a certain number of complete read/write cycles. The smaller the drive, the faster you burn through those cycles. That, and the fact Sentry recordings don't automatically overwrite, is why I suggest at least a 128GB drive for Sentry use. Personally I've been using this for Sentry for 2 months now with no issues- https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-MUF-128AB-AM-Plus-128GB/dp/B07D7PDLXC
I'm using a 256GB Samsung Endurance Pro microSD card right now in a card reader. Have a 256GB blackvue microSD card I can switch out with. Seems to be a good capacity card that takes me a while to even get close to filling (so far not yet). I do periodically pull it and check footage and then continue to use. Not really sure what the best time is to reformat. I'm thinking to let the flashdrive get written to near the end and then reformat but really not sure how the controller is writing to the media. Anyone? We've been having temps in the 100s and suspect many more weeks of it as we move through summer/fall. We do use cabin overheat protection which as long as I've sat in the car will keep the temp no higher than 105F so curious to see how the usb feature works over the summer. Wonder how hot that interior area will get. The dashcam feature does have constant overwriting (buffer folder) going on. The Endurance Pro card is at least designed for dashcam use where as the run of the mill usb drives are not.
I've got 128GB for now. As much as I'm thankful that Tesla created dashcam and Sentry recordings for us (Thank you Tesla!), I'm VERY ready to quit with the "long click" to stop recording.....wait a bit...dig through the storage compartment....unplug the USB......plug USB into some other computer device......review footage.....dig back into the storage compartment....re-plug in USB...wait a bit....."long click" to resume recording. Doing this EVERY time Sentry mode says there was a recording? Gettin' old!
If you simply walk around your car to look for any damage, why would you need to check the drive every time you see an event? Most of the time anyway if you watch the videos it's just people walking or driving by the vicinity of your car trigging the sentry recording by motion or sound vibration. No damage, no real need to look. Unless you just want to see if people are snooping in your car. I just check the car and ignore the alerts and at some point for maintenance of the card will look over some files to see if the recordings are happening (if not card might be corrupt and need replacing), how they are going, how much space I have left on my microSD card. At some point will be time to reformat which even the Blackvue dashcam we have does (at one time you had to do this manually by pushing a button to reformat but now believe it's done for you in software of the camera itself).
