Recommended USB drive for dashcam

[dusterbuster]

This might be a bit of overkill, but I understand that flash drives with MLC NAND flash chips generally are more reliable and better able to handle more frequent writes/rewrites on the drive (and therefore are recommended for dash cams). They are also 2-3x more expensive than comparably sized TLC based drives, however.

Here is what I picked up from Amazon:

Transcend 64GB JetFlash 780 USB 3.0 Flash Drive (TS64GJF780) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A7XPWYY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_q1OYBbZC7WJXZ

 

[tmarcc]

I like these, since they're low profile and have both USB-A and USB-C connectors. Since the the Tesla dashcam feature requires pulling the drive to transfer video footage, USB C is useful for data transfer on newer laptops/PCs that may only have USB C without need for an adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M59PHE4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[zhu-]

Using a drive that is larger than necessary will probably prolong its life (since it has more room for wear-leveling). The pricing sweet spot is probably 32 or 64GB right now. AFAIK the ports in the Model 3 are USB 2, so buying a USB 3 drive is unnecessary.

Seriously 2.0? I was wondering what write speeds I needed for the drive to futureproof when all 8 cameras are recording but looks like the port itself is probably slower than many modern drives anyway.

 

[Knightshade]

Seriously 2.0? I was wondering what write speeds I needed for the drive to futureproof when all 8 cameras are recording but looks like the port itself is probably slower than many modern drives anyway.

Yes 2.0... why would it need 3?

One camera is writing at ~1800MB per hour...or 0.5 MB/second. 0.5MB * 8= 4MB/second for 8 cameras. Even the crappiest USB2 drive should be able to do at least 2-3x that write speed... (in theory USB2 can do about 15x that speed, but real world is never that fast).

And obviously 2 is plenty fast enough for music as well (even at the same time as the camera stuff if you share the same USB port with a hub) as music bandwidth is quite low.

 

[Need]

Well, there may be some people who put music on the USB drive 2nd partition want 3.0 USB flash drive. That way they could change out the songs faster on their computer.

 

[Knightshade]

Well, there may be some people who put music on the USB drive 2nd partition want 3.0 USB flash drive. That way they could change out the songs faster on their computer.

But that has literally nothing to do with the car.

USB3 drives- which solve the issue you mention- work perfectly fine in USB2 ports (what the car has)

 

[Shygar]

Seriously 2.0? I was wondering what write speeds I needed for the drive to futureproof when all 8 cameras are recording but looks like the port itself is probably slower than many modern drives anyway.

The cameras are not very high resolution.

 

[zhu-]

Yes 2.0... why would it need 3?

One camera is writing at ~1800MB per hour...or 0.5 MB/second. 0.5MB * 8= 4MB/second for 8 cameras. Even the crappiest USB2 drive should be able to do at least 2-3x that write speed... (in theory USB2 can do about 15x that speed, but real world is never that fast).

And obviously 2 is plenty fast enough for music as well (even at the same time as the camera stuff if you share the same USB port with a hub) as music bandwidth is quite low.

It might not be needed, but on a $60k product, I'd imagine the cost of USB 2.0 vs 3.0 would be extremely nominal and might allow future high-bandwidth uses for the usb ports.

 

[Knightshade]

It might not be needed, but on a $60k product, I'd imagine the cost of USB 2.0 vs 3.0 would be extremely nominal and might allow future high-bandwidth uses for the usb ports.

...such as...what specifically?

Even if it only saves $2 a car, that's a million bucks a year Tesla saves based on their projected 500k production plan, at the cost of zero functional difference to the owners.

 

[Eno Deb]

Seriously 2.0? I was wondering what write speeds I needed for the drive to futureproof when all 8 cameras are recording but looks like the port itself is probably slower than many modern drives anyway.

USB 2.0 supports up to 480Mbps. This is enough to record 8 compressed live video streams in reasonable HD quality (for comparison: Blu-ray movies are usually encoded with bitrates around 20-30Mbps). The bottleneck for recording from multiple cameras in the Tesla is more likely the CPU power required to compress multiple streams in near real time, especially given that the hardware wasn't originally designed for this.

 

[Shygar]

I'm pretty sure it will come eventually. They just tried to get something out the door for now.

 

[Snow Drift]

I bought the Samsung MUF-128AB/AM 128GB USB 3.1 and it has the X now (I'm on 39.7). Is anything working to fix this?

Got this on sale for 24.99, faster than SanDisk and doesn't seem to have the overheating problem.
Samsung 128GB FIT Plus USB 3.1 Flash Drive, Speed Up to 300MB/s (MUF-128AB/AM)

Are you a human?

Did you get the X?

I got the same Samsung USB drive. For me the reason was not the 3.1 drive but the rugged specs of the drive being able to tolerates much higher and lower temperature extremes beyond most other USB drives I looked at.

Did you get the X?

 

[zhu-]

...such as...what specifically?

Even if it only saves $2 a car, that's a million bucks a year Tesla saves based on their projected 500k production plan, at the cost of zero functional difference to the owners.

A million dollars seem like a lot on it's own, but across 500k vehicles, it's insignificant. On 500k vehicles, at an average selling price of $50k, a one million dollar increase on $25B of sales is 0.004%. There are likely many other optimizations that would yield larger savings.

What could the 3.0 port be used for? Honestly I have no idea. But if you told someone 12 years ago you wanted a cpu as powerful as many laptops today inside your cell phone, that would've been seen as equally ridiculous. Generally when limits are pushed beyond the edge, people come up with creative ways to make use of it. There really might not be any benefits of a 3.0 port but considering I haven't even seen 2.0 ports on any cheap modern devices as far as I'm aware, I just found it to be a bit surprising.

 

[Knightshade]

A million dollars seem like a lot on it's own, but across 500k vehicles, it's insignificant. .

For a company that at the time the car was designed had lost money almost every single quarter for its entire existence, a million dollars is a lot of money.

Especially when nobody can suggest any benefit they'd have obtained from NOT saving the million bucks.

(and that's a million per year, not total, based on the #s used)

What could the 3.0 port be used for? Honestly I have no idea. But if you told someone 12 years ago you wanted a cpu as powerful as many laptops today inside your cell phone, that would've been seen as equally ridiculous. Generally when limits are pushed beyond the edge, people come up with creative ways to make use of it. There really might not be any benefits of a 3.0 port but considering I haven't even seen 2.0 ports on any cheap modern devices as far as I'm aware, I just found it to be a bit surprising.

Speaking of cell phones- funny story.

My iPhone X works perfect as a Tesla key.

But do you know what it does NOT support?

USB3.

Lightning-to-USB connection is still USB 2.0. Just like the Tesla is.

 

[zhu-]

For a company that at the time the car was designed had lost money almost every single quarter for its entire existence, a million dollars is a lot of money.

Especially when nobody can suggest any benefit they'd have obtained from NOT saving the million bucks.

(and that's a million per year, not total, based on the #s used)

A million dollars is a lot of money, but it's all relative. Elon spends $20M just to write funny tweets - and Tesla paid another $20M on top for it. If you make $250k a year, going to Chipotle and paying the extra $2 for guac is insignificant. Sure someone in Africa could live off that $2 for a week but relative to the situation, it carries minimal significance.

 

[Wahbash]

I think the USB 2.0 VS 3.0 discussion is kinda funny.

Flash drives are dirt cheap. I literally have two dozen littering my house. By the time Tesla releases full 360 degree eight camera recording who knows we might be on USB 4.0 and this debate will be moot.

 

[ishareit]

Yes 2.0... why would it need 3?

One camera is writing at ~1800MB per hour...or 0.5 MB/second. 0.5MB * 8= 4MB/second for 8 cameras. Even the crappiest USB2 drive should be able to do at least 2-3x that write speed... (in theory USB2 can do about 15x that speed, but real world is never that fast).

And obviously 2 is plenty fast enough for music as well (even at the same time as the camera stuff if you share the same USB port with a hub) as music bandwidth is quite low.

I could be wrong, but I don't think that thats how it works. It is probably buffering the video in memory and flushing to the USB periodically (every minute?) at whatever speed it can - limited by USB 2.0 standard/USB flash drive write speed.

 

[eladts]

I'm using a Samsung 64GB microSD with a Rocketek USB Adapter. Got these on November 1, no issues since then.

 

[Knightshade]

I could be wrong, but I don't think that thats how it works. It is probably buffering the video in memory and flushing to the USB periodically (every minute?) at whatever speed it can - limited by USB 2.0 standard/USB flash drive write speed.

Except it's not limited by USB2 speeds. At all. Even remotely.

That was the point. USB2 is tremendously faster than needed for this job.

 

[ishareit]

Except it's not limited by USB2 speeds. At all. Even remotely.

That was the point. USB2 is tremendously faster than needed for this job.

Sure, my point was that Tesla is not writing at 0.5 MB/sec as you implied.