BlackVue 128GB microSD card, how long lasting?

[tedhv]

Hi all, first post here.

How long should the BlackVue 128GB microSD card last in the DR900S-2CH?

Doing a rough calculation, mine (first SD card) lasted about 400 hours of "normal recording" at 4K highest(extreme) resolution, over 10 months, no significant amount of hot outdoor parking. Good? Bad? Typical?

Does parking mode with buffered video do as much writing to the SD card as "normal recording"?

 

[jokiin]

buffered mode writes to internal memory when there's nothing happening

 

[Allandrick]

Mine died within a month with default settings and parking mode turned on - the sensitivity of motion detection meant it was recording 24x7.

 

[jokiin]

there's a very fine line between 'misses obvious stuff' and 'records constantly' when it comes to motion detection in dashcams

 

[Nigel]

Hi all, first post here.

How long should the BlackVue 128GB microSD card last in the DR900S-2CH?

Doing a rough calculation, mine (first SD card) lasted about 400 hours of "normal recording" at 4K highest(extreme) resolution, over 10 months, no significant amount of hot outdoor parking. Good? Bad? Typical?

Does parking mode with buffered video do as much writing to the SD card as "normal recording"?

Well, 128 (card capacity) * 1000 write cycles (cheap card lifetime) * 1000 (for mega instead of giga bytes) * 8 (for bits instead of bytes) / 25 (bitrate of DR900 in extreme mode) / (60 * 60) (seconds to hours) = 11,377 hours, and a decent quality endurance card should last two to three times that, and parking mode should be at least another 4 times.

So I don't think these BlackVue cards are doing very well

 

[tedhv]

Well, 128 (card capacity) * 1000 write cycles (cheap card lifetime) * 1000 (for mega instead of giga bytes) * 8 (for bits instead of bytes) / 25 (bitrate of DR900 in extreme mode) / (60 * 60) (seconds to hours) = 11,377 hours, and a decent quality endurance card should last two to three times that, and parking mode should be at least another 4 times.

So I don't think these BlackVue cards are doing very well

Interesting calculation. Thanks.

That's a Tera (Megabit) of written data for writing the entire memory only 1000 times. According to the BlackVue table for "Recording Time", it's actually 35 Mbps including the rear camera so that makes it about 8000 hours.

With about 7h20m recording time to fill the memory (from BlackVue table), it looks my 400 hours (about 20,000 car miles assuming 50 mph average) wrote the entire memory about 55 times before it started showing signs of failing. But that isn't accounting for impact and motion recordings in parking mode. (I'm not quite sure what you mean by "parking mode should be at least another 4 times".)

 

[Nigel]

Interesting calculation. Thanks.

That's a Tera (Megabit) of written data for writing the entire memory only 1000 times. According to the BlackVue table for "Recording Time", it's actually 35 Mbps including the rear camera so that makes it about 8000 hours.

With about 7h20m recording time to fill the memory (from BlackVue table), it looks my 400 hours (about 20,000 car miles assuming 50 mph average) wrote the entire memory about 55 times before it started showing signs of failing. But that isn't accounting for impact and motion recordings in parking mode. (I'm not quite sure what you mean by "parking mode should be at least another 4 times".)

I forgot the rear camera, that is why it is always good to post the calculation! I don't actually have a Blackvue camera.

Hopefully you don't have many impacts during parking mode, but the motion detection is impossible to predict, can be affected by where you park, the weather, etc. etc., so my at least 4x is based on a Viofo camera using low bitrate parking mode which records all the time, but only uses 1/4 the normal space, which is plenty if the car isn't moving. Not really relevant to the Blackvue, but I would be disapointed if motion detection recorded for more than 1/4 of the time, makes it a bit pointless! I was really just pointing out that you need to take parking mode into account.

 

[tedhv]

I forgot the rear camera, that is why it is always good to post the calculation! I don't actually have a Blackvue camera.

Hopefully you don't have many impacts during parking mode, but the motion detection is impossible to predict, can be affected by where you park, the weather, etc. etc., so my at least 4x is based on a Viofo camera using low bitrate parking mode which records all the time, but only uses 1/4 the normal space, which is plenty if the car isn't moving. Not really relevant to the Blackvue, but I would be disapointed if motion detection recorded for more than 1/4 of the time, makes it a bit pointless! I was really just pointing out that you need to take parking mode into account.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm going with the Samsung 128GB Pro Endurance which I got for $35, supposedly lasting 43,800 hours of 4K video recording. From what I've read here and elsewhere it seems to be the one to go with for now.

BlackVue DR900S has a recently added setting in parking mode to record continuously at one frame per second. I'd like to see an option for 2 and 3, and maybe even 5, frames per second. Maybe in a future firmware release.

 

[Nigel]

1 frame per second is not enough, a passing car can travel a long way in 1 second, very good chance of missing a plate. 3fps makes a big difference.

 

[tedhv]

1 frame per second is not enough, a passing car can travel a long way in 1 second, very good chance of missing a plate. 3fps makes a big difference.

I would think something like record and save at 1 or 2 fps, keep a 10 second buffer at 5 fps, and then a minute's worth of recording at 5 fps when there is an event, that would be ideal.