WileyTheMan
Peanut Gallery Member
This. IMO, SSDs are the way to go. They are more durable (read/write and temperature stress) than most thumb drives and are not cost prohibitive.
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This is exactly what I do. If there's no damage and everything looks fine, I just ignore the Sentry Mode notification / count and go about my driving. It's not until something happens (hopefully nothing ever does) that I'll be inclined to remove the drive to review the recordings. At that point, I can only hope the files aren't corrupted.
You should periodically check. Stuff happens, drives can overheat, flash will fail at some point and you might not realize it until you've needed it. Also it's good to reformat periodically, even happens on physical dashcams.
insaneoctane
Well-Known Member
- Could be at night
- Could be a busy parking lot with people waiting for your space
- Could have just loaded the whole family in the car and they are ready to go
- Could be a hurry in general
CuriousG
Active Member
I swapped out my CostCo USB 3.0 32GB bought a few years back due to corruption in files (many files not similarly sized and when viewed lots of artifacts), and replaced with a 64GB Lexar microSD card. That particular brand is often recommended in BlackVue dashcams. Do we know if TeslaCam utilizes the whole partition before rewriting files? I think I only set aside 8GB for the dashcam feature and the rest for music in another partition. Sometimes the recording icon is greyed out with an X and sometimes it doesn't show at all but it still allows you to put it in sentry mode. Could just be a bug with the firmware?
OMG 8 GB is incredibly small and explains the gray X, which Tesla says in the manual will indicate that there’s no room to write too. 64GB still isn’t that large for sole dashcam use, depending on how many times Sentry mode might trigger in high traffic’d areas. If you want to use that drive, I’d suggest even at 64 GB devoting the whole drive to dashcam. You saw the problems halving it at 32GB encountered.
It's about 1GB per time sentry triggers or you click the icon to save footage. So yeah 8GB is not enough for sentry mode...
CuriousG
Active Member
Actually the 32GB USB was a dedicated USB until I went with the microSD which I made two separate partitions. So I had two dedicated USB drives at one point. Guess I should consider doing the SSD route.
If there was no room to write, how is it able to write at a later point without me having to do anything? There has to be some kind of cleanup process it goes through.
As mentioned I'm using a 256GB Samsung Endurance Pro microSD card I got off Amazon for like $30 during a flash sale period. Had it running in my card reader since 4/9. No issues and last I checked down to 50GB of space. I'll reformat before then and I do periodically check the card.
I have no idea how flash media gets written to exactly as it's continually written to. I don't know if this is controlled by the dashcam software or something on the flash media itself. Think there's a controller somewhere that directs this. Obviously some usb drives are meant to last longer as far as reads/writes even among media with the same capacity. I do know that flash will write to a cell, and then rewrite to a cell by essentially burning the top layer of the cell off. It can only do this so many times before the cell becomes unusable and it ignores that portion and writes elsewhere. I do know that when the material fails, it will stop writing and will write protect what has been already written to it (not sure if always but happened to us with our regular dashcam microSD card). You can see the old files but the media becomes essentially locked down and useless for any future writing (so can't even be reformatted).
BTW you mentioned that you had an old 32GB drive you had for years that you used in your Tesla. I suspect it had been read/written to quite a bit over that timespan so that might explain why it crapped out on you.
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I wonder if its good to pull out and delete files all the time on a regular basis. Thinking all the reading/writing/deleting a lot more regularly than every few weeks or month or so. I have a 256GB microSD card that I haven’t felt the need to delete anything from yet since I started using it in early April because I still have 50GB of available space, so haven’t done a reformat yet. Will before it gets too close to being filled. The timing has been a question I’ve had and wondered what’s the more flash healthy approach.
I use a MicroSD that I wipe every week because I park at the airport and fill most of it up. So far no problems. This is with a 256.
I’ll be curious to hear from members how their recording devices have held up. Will still be hard to compare with everyone having different settings it’s used in. But appreciate the feedback. What brand/product name and how long in use?
RayK
Active Member
256GB Samsung USB 3.1 FIT Plus, partitioned into ~60GB (dashcam) and ~180GB (music). I'm using a non-high endurance drive just to see how long it lasts. I've taken it out only a couple of times to view/erase files since installing it middle of March.
Am I understand it correctly?
It’s better to get SSD> microD cards with readers > USB flash drives because usbs die faster after just a small number of loops which will happen due to the dash cam writing styles?
It’s better to get SSD> microD cards with readers > USB flash drives because usbs die faster after just a small number of loops which will happen due to the dash cam writing styles?
RayK
Active Member
SSDs by nature have a memory controller inside them which automatically spreads around which blocks of memory are being used. This "wear leveling" algorithm, along with some special error correction routines, helps to extend the useful life of the drive. Your run-of-the-mill flash drives normally don't have these features (high endurance models excepted). All of this is because flash memory has a finite number of times you can write or erase data blocks.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
All 3 use flash memory. Same basic technology.
The more expensive versions of any use better quality/type of flash memory.
Just about all of them have some kind of wear-leveling at the controller level (meaning it writes to different parts of the flash as it goes)
What it essentially comes down to is the better the quality/type of memory, the more write cycles it's rated to handle.
If you use a tiny amount of storage this is a big deal- the 1 hour buffer uses 5.4 GB and each 10 minute saved recording is another 0.9 GB.
So let's say you have the camera "on" 10 hours a day (sentry for 8 at work, 2 hours driving between to/from work and if you run out someplace).
That's 54 GB recorded in 1 day. almost 7 full write cycles on an 8GB key. A "cheap" type of flash key will be rated for maybe 3000-5000 cycles. So that 8GB key is done in roughly 1-2 years.
But If you use a large enough one this won't make much difference- A 128GB key would only use about .43 write cycles in a day at that pace.... 157 write cycles per year... so rated at 3000-5000 write cycles means it's good for between 19 and 32 years.
Which seems plenty enough for me.
Now let's say you use dashcam and sentry 24/7. Worst case scenario.
So your use is 2.4 times higher than the above.
That 8GB cheap key is now dead in 5-10 months.
The 128GB key is still good for 8-13 years.
That's honestly plenty for me, so I just got the Samsung 128GB one I mentioned since it's really small, has good temp ratings, and called it a day.
I'd be more concerned about the rated conditions of whatever you buy- some SSDs for example explicitly list much narrow temp ranges for use than some USB sticks or SDcards so I'd easily pick either ahead of an SSD in that case.
By all means an SSD (if rated for the entire range of temps you will encounter) will work fine, but so should anything else of sufficient size that it's not burning through an entire write cycle in a week.
If you plan to keep the car for more than a decade and need recordings that old I guess you can pay more for MLC-based flash, which lasts about twice as many cycles as the cheap TLC stuff.... or drop a bundle on SLC which lasts 20 times longer than TLC I guess.
But if my biggest problem with a car after 8 years is my $25 USB key died I'll be pretty happy.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
They do though.
All flash memory devices have a controller- and wear leveling was rare in USB key controllers 5 years ago, but is fairly common today.... maybe not in some crap giveaway keys, but all the decent ones from Samsung, Sandisk, etc tend to have it.
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