Recommended USB drive for dashcam

[Knightshade]

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

Did you provide any evidence of this and I missed it?

We know for a fact it writes about 1.8GB per hour.

The # I provided is the accurate average write speed per second for that amount of data per hour.

And it's tremendously lower than the speeds USB2 is capable of.

If the system buffered 1 minute at a time and then wrote it when it had the full minute, that would make 0 difference to the math overall...since it'd have a full minute to write that video before it needed to write anything else. Either way USB2 is plenty fast ton with a ton of bandwidth to spare and not "limiting" anything.

 

[ishareit]

Did you provide any evidence of this and I missed it?

We know for a fact it writes about 1.8GB per hour.

The # I provided is the accurate average write speed per second for that amount of data per hour.

And it's tremendously lower than the speeds USB2 is capable of.

If the system buffered 1 minute at a time and then wrote it when it had the full minute, that would make 0 difference to the math overall...since it'd have a full minute to write that video before it needed to write anything else. Either way USB2 is plenty fast ton with a ton of bandwidth to spare and not "limiting" anything.

You’re missing my point and I am not saying that USB 2.0 is slow by any means. And you haven’t provided any evidence that it’s writing at 0.5 MB per sec either. The fact that it takes 1.8GB for 1 hr of video doesn’t mean that it’s writing at 0.5 MB per sec, and that was my sole point. Peace.

 

[Knightshade]

You’re missing my point and I am not saying that USB 2.0 is slow by any means. And you haven’t provided any evidence that it’s writing at 0.5 MB per sec either.

Yes, I have. With math and everything.

Versus your claim where you've provided... literally nothing but the claim.

The fact that it takes 1.8GB for 1 hr of video doesn’t mean that it’s writing at 0.5 MB per sec, and that was my sole point. Peace.

I've honestly no idea what your point actually is- or what relevant it would have to your debunked claim that it's at all "limited" by USB2 speeds that you now seem to instead agree isn't actually limiting anything.

 

[ishareit]

Yes, I have. With math and everything.

Versus your claim where you've provided... literally nothing but the claim.



I've honestly no idea what your point actually is- or what relevant it would have to your debunked claim that it's at all "limited" by USB2 speeds that you now seem to instead agree isn't actually limiting anything.

I am going to try one more time, and if the point still isn't clear, I rest my case since its not that important for me.

(The only) known fact: The size for every one hour of video recording files is 1.8 GB.

And there are two *possible* ways in which video files are written to the USB. None of which are *known facts*.

Option 1 (your way): The video is written continuously to the USB in which case your math is probably correct and it is writing at 0.5 MB/sec. Nothing really matters in this case, not the USB 2.0 standard and not the USB flash drive write speed since pretty much all USB drives write faster than 0.5 MB/sec.

Option 2 (my assumption): The video is continuously buffered in internal memory and flushed to the USB every (let's say) 15 seconds. This would mean that it is trying to write at 7.5 MB/sec every 15 seconds. If it is flushing more or less frequently, the write speed would change, and *could* potentially be "limited by USB 2.0 standard/USB flash drive write speed". Now, even though I said that it could be limited by USB 2.0 standard, I agree that it is most likely not the case because it is probably flushing the video frequently. But it is still probably limited by other factors including (and most likely) the write speed of the USB drive.

I hope I was able to explain my point better.

Update - It seems like Option 2 is more plausible because my USB drive blinks every time it is being written to and I just checked and it blinks about 3 times few seconds apart after approximately a minute and that is also when the "red dot" on the dash cam icon turns grey for about a second. So, it is probably buffering a minute worth of video and then flushing that to the disk at once.

 

[Knightshade]

I am going to try one more time, and if the point still isn't clear, I rest my case since its not that important for me.

(The only) known fact: The size for every one hour of video recording files is 1.8 GB.

And there are two *possible* ways in which video files are written to the USB. None of which are *known facts*.

Option 1 (your way): The video is written continuously to the USB in which case your math is probably correct and it is writing at 0.5 MB/sec. Nothing really matters in this case, not the USB 2.0 standard and not the USB flash drive write speed since pretty much all USB drives write faster than 0.5 MB/sec.

So far so good...

Option 2 (my assumption): The video is continuously buffered in internal memory and flushed to the USB every (let's say) 15 seconds. This would mean that it is trying to write at 7.5 MB/sec every 15 seconds. If it is flushing more or less frequently, the write speed would change, and *could* potentially be "limited by USB 2.0 standard/USB flash drive write speed". Now, even though I said that it could be limited by USB 2.0 standard, I agree that it is most likely not the case because it is probably flushing the video frequently. But it is still probably limited by other factors including (and most likely) the write speed of the USB drive.

I hope I was able to explain my point better.

Nope.

For one- even if your assumption was correct, it would have 15 seconds (until the next write is commanded) to complete it's 7.5 MB write. Which over 15 seconds is... 0.5 MB/sec.

Because that's how math works.

But even if it had to do it in ONE second because... REASONS!... that's still less speed required than USB2 provides.

The theoretical max of the USB2.0 standard is 60MB/sec. 8 times faster than your suggested need.

And while real-world you don't get full speed, you'll certainly get better than 7.5 MB/second.

 

[ishareit]

Nope.

For one- even if your assumption was correct, it would have 15 seconds (until the next write is commanded) to complete it's 7.5 MB write. Which over 15 seconds is... 0.5 MB/sec.

Because that's how math works.

I rest my case...

 

[aronth5]

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

Well I'm going to give this a try. I've gone thru many drives most recommended by users on this forum but no microSD's. In every case I've had widely varying results often on the same drive. What's worse is the results are getting worse with every upgrade. On 46.2 as of last night and reformatted a drive gave it a try today and no viewable video files. My best results were with a Kingston 16gb 2.0 drive I had hanging around. Go figure!

 

[ricebucket]

"

So far so good...



Nope.

For one- even if your assumption was correct, it would have 15 seconds (until the next write is commanded) to complete it's 7.5 MB write. Which over 15 seconds is... 0.5 MB/sec.

Because that's how math works.

But even if it had to do it in ONE second because... REASONS!... that's still less speed required than USB2 provides.

The theoretical max of the USB2.0 standard is 60MB/sec. 8 times faster than your suggested need.

And while real-world you don't get full speed, you'll certainly get better than 7.5 MB/second.

Just saw this thread. Want to jump in here and say, for the record (since a non-technical person might get confused as to who to believe in this 1:1 argument): yes you're absolutely right. Sumit is totally wrong. And this is my professional opinion.

Sumit's mistake with option 2 is this line: "7.5 MB/sec every 15 second." This is just embarrassingly bad math (MB/s^2 doesn't make any sense at all).
The car is trying to write 7.5MB every 15 seconds, not “7.5MB/s per 15 sec" as Sumit stated. From this stat, we see that as long as it finishes writing 7.5MB within 15 seconds, then we're OK. And that means a minimum 0.5MB/s sustained write rate for the drive.

 

[Shygar]

Yea I think the advantage is these cameras are not high resolution. They are quite low actually

 

[lairdb]

Everyone fretting about resolution is over-complicating matters. A 5000x5000 pixel image can be stored in less than 200 bytes in some circumstances.

Work the problem that's in front of us: real life TeslaCam files with real image info shoved through real Tesla-chosen compression algorithms are about 30MB/minute, which is about 512KB/s. Three at a time is 1.5MB/s. File seek overhead, header rewrite, etc., should be negligible, but let's be pessimistic and call it 30%, which gives us a convenient 2MB/s.

The worst dimestore USB 2.0 flashdrives typically deliver triple that; ten times that is typical.

 

[pslawing]

I just formatted my drive and put folder in it TeslaCam. Apparently my car doesn't recognize it, there is no dash cam icon on screen. Any suggestions?

 

[SMAlset]

I just formatted my drive and put folder in it TeslaCam. Apparently my car doesn't recognize it, there is no dash cam icon on screen. Any suggestions?

I know some Windows users have had issues and people have offered how to handle it. Did you format with FAT32? Must be in that formatting. After reformatting did you remember to add the "TeslaCam" folder? Also if put in the flashdrive and see the camera but no red light after a few seconds, touch the camera icon and the red recording light should turn on.

 

[pslawing]

I know some Windows users have had issues and people have offered how to handle it. Did you format with FAT32? Must be in that formatting. After reformatting did you remember to add the "TeslaCam" folder? Also if put in the flashdrive and see the camera but no red light after a few seconds, touch the camera icon and the red recording light should turn on.

Thank you for answering Im on a mac so the only option is MS-DOS(FAT)
Sub folder TeslaCam
Front USB - I'm in an S so it's one of the two USB between front seats in console, correct?
Thanks

 

[SMAlset]

Thank you for answering Im on a mac so the only option is MS-DOS(FAT)
Sub folder TeslaCam
Front USB - I'm in an S so it's one of the two USB between front seats in console, correct?
Thanks

Mac here too. TeslaCam folder has to be on the root level of the USB drive. It will automatically create the two subfolders that saved clips get placed in.

Well is your Model S equipped with AP2 or AP2.5? Our Model S was built in March 2017 and has AP2 and cannot get TeslaCam or Sentry Mode. If you also have AP2 that could explain why you're not seeing a camera icon. You'll get dog mode and some other updates with this last Model S release.

 

[pslawing]

OH! Mine was built Dec 2016 so it guess it's AP2, so I will be unable to use the Dashcam feature?

 

[SMAlset]

OH! Mine was built Dec 2016 so it guess it's AP2, so I will be unable to use the Dashcam feature?

No, at least not at this point in time. Not sure if it will ever be a feature. We have a Blackvue 900S-2ch (front and rear) dashcam installed in our S. Works great and haven't had the corruption issues I'm seeing on my Model 3 TeslaCam. Have a 128GB microSD card in it. If you want a dashcam you might want to look into something like that. There's also a Blackvue app so that you can with wifi connect to your dashcam and view and retrieve or delete video files, something not available with TeslaCam now. They also have a Cloud solution which we don't use. On the plus side the Blackvue can be hardwired pretty easily into the wiring at the rearview mirror area. We have 24/7 video coverage including parking.

 

[pslawing]

Thank you so much SMAIset!!! saved me a lot of unnecessary work, OH WELL! Have a good day

 

[OCR1]

This article gives some pretty specific recommendations on minimum write speeds for USB drives for the Dashcam. Can anyone either confirm or refute its recommendations?

USB Flash Drives for Tesla Dashcam | TeslaTap

 

[Edgewood Dome]

This article gives some pretty specific recommendations on minimum write speeds for USB drives for the Dashcam. Can anyone either confirm or refute its recommendations?

USB Flash Drives for Tesla Dashcam | TeslaTap

Sounds about right. Recently, those folks on 5.15 or the new 8.3 are finding problems with garbled images on repeater cameras and/or stuttering music if the music is from the same USB Flash drive used for the TelsaCam. Some, including myself, are finding USB powered SSD drives are better than Flash. Should last longer too. Problem appears to be Too much data being written and read for the Flash dives to handle.

 

[Edgewood Dome]

OH! Mine was built Dec 2016 so it guess it's AP2, so I will be unable to use the Dashcam feature?

For now at least. I'm hoping they extend it to the 2.0 cars. I have one of each and like the TeslaCam and Sentry mode.