# How big capacity of SD card should I get for my dash cam?



## Noexcuse19 (Oct 31, 2019)

I bought a Vantrue N4 dash cam recently. It's a 3-channel dash cam(front, cabin, rear) so I'm wondering if a 128gb SD card is enough or should I get a bigger capacity SD card? Any advice?


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## Taxi2Uber (Jul 21, 2017)

Depends.
Do you drive 1 hr a day or 12 hrs a day?
Are you going to transfer files onto computer/hard drive everyday?
Specs say your camera can handle 256gb max, so simple answer, get 256.

I don't have the Vantrue, but my dashcam is 2-channel 1080p and 128gb max.
I can go about 10hrs before files start to get written over with loop recording.


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## SpinalCabbage (Feb 5, 2020)

I run a Vantrue N2 Pro. It is a dual cam. I use 128gb cards and carry two so I can swap them when and if needed. As I generally stuck with 4-6 hour shifts one card covers the entire shift for me. I picked 128gb due to price. With 256gb cards being more affordable now, I'd use them instead of 128gb due to you recording three channels. In fact I might switch to 256gb myself.


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## Stevie The magic Unicorn (Apr 3, 2018)

Enough to keep 2 weeks worth of driving on seperate cards.

One week in the camera active and a second card that has last weeks data on it. Every sunday you swap the card and wipe the older one.

the idea being that any false accusations will occur within 2 weeks.


The idea situation would be to store a months worth of videos.


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## Boca Ratman (Jun 6, 2018)

Noexcuse19 said:


> I bought a Vantrue N4 dash cam recently. It's a 3-channel dash cam(front, cabin, rear) so I'm wondering if a 128gb SD card is enough or should I get a bigger capacity SD card? Any advice?


Get the biggest the camera will support.


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## _Tron_ (Feb 9, 2020)

This 128G flash drive has worked flawlessly in my Vantrue...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TKFCYP0/?tag=ubne0c-20

They make a 256G version as well...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EHG3GVM/?tag=ubne0c-20

I would take cabbage's advice and get the larger one. They're so inexpensive it makes the decision a no-brainer. It's only a 2.0 drive but that is plenty fast to record the streaming video.


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## NicFit (Jan 18, 2020)

I have a 128gb card in my blackvue. I don’t have the video settings turned all the way up and it stores weeks of video. Do you really need 4K recordings? Turn it down to a medium framerate 1080p and make the card last longer


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## Seamus (Jun 21, 2018)

Stevie The magic Unicorn said:


> The idea situation would be to store a months worth of videos.


Exactly what I did. At the end of every tour I would download the nights recordings onto my computer. "Normal rides" I purged every month. In the event some craziness went on I stored them in a "forever" file. I have 3 rides from 2017 still stored! LOL


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## LyftUberFuwabolewa (Feb 7, 2019)

The biggest one it can hold. Ideally it will hold more than a full days worth of driving.

Get more than one card. It's good to swap the card each day so that way you not only have the current days worth of driving on the currently active card but you have the days before driving on your spare card.

You also want to have more than one card because if you have an event that you highly suspect is going to require you sending the video to the rideshare company you're gonna want to pull the card right away once you shut down the camera. Then pop your spare card in for the rest of the day's driving.


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## Noexcuse19 (Oct 31, 2019)

Stevie The magic Unicorn said:


> Enough to keep 2 weeks worth of driving on seperate cards.
> 
> One week in the camera active and a second card that has last weeks data on it. Every sunday you swap the card and wipe the older one.
> 
> ...


Thanks



LyftUberFuwabolewa said:


> The biggest one it can hold. Ideally it will hold more than a full days worth of driving.
> 
> Get more than one card. It's good to swap the card each day so that way you not only have the current days worth of driving on the currently active card but you have the days before driving on your spare card.
> 
> You also want to have more than one card because if you have an event that you highly suspect is going to require you sending the video to the rideshare company you're gonna want to pull the card right away once you shut down the camera. Then pop your spare card in for the rest of the day's driving.


Thanks for the tip


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## estore009 (Oct 14, 2017)

Noexcuse19 said:


> I bought a Vantrue N4 dash cam recently. It's a 3-channel dash cam(front, cabin, rear) so I'm wondering if a 128gb SD card is enough or should I get a bigger capacity SD card? Any advice?


Not support 512Gb card or 400Gb card? Might give it a try with a 512Gb card!


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## DJJoeyZ (May 1, 2020)

Find out the maximum size card the cam can support and go with that.


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## Uberguyken (May 10, 2020)

If it'll hold a bigger one get it. I'm using a 256gb, and I'd have a 512gb if it was supported....


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## _Tron_ (Feb 9, 2020)

Noexcuse19, if you come back to this thread, why don't you give us some shots of the three channel rig looks when it is set up. I think most folks have the two channel rig.


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## Mash Ghasem (Jan 12, 2020)

Stevie The magic Unicorn said:


> Enough to keep 2 weeks worth of driving on seperate cards.
> 
> One week in the camera active and a second card that has last weeks data on it. Every sunday you swap the card and wipe the older one.
> 
> ...


You can't hold one week in the camera, because you can't fit that much on a single memory card even with the dashcam configured to run at its lowest resolution-- and running a dashcam at anything below its maximum resolution can defeat the purpose of having the dashcam to begin with as the video will be small and license plates and other details will not be visible.

I have a Vantrue N2 Pro, the older 2-lens version of OP's N4. I have it running at max resolution, with 3-minute looped clips. That has been yielding video clips that average 278,806,720 bytes per 3-minute file per lens. That's about 1,548,926 bytes per second per lens. Using a 128GB card, I'm at near-capacity after 11 hours.

The OP has the N4 which has 3 lenses. Assuming the same average video rate from above and running at maximum resolution with 3 lenses of the N4, I'm estimating a 128G card will fit 7.6 hours and a 256G card will fit 15.3 hours.


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## gdaymate67 (Apr 29, 2019)

Noexcuse19 said:


> I bought a Vantrue N4 dash cam recently. It's a 3-channel dash cam(front, cabin, rear) so I'm wondering if a 128gb SD card is enough or should I get a bigger capacity SD card? Any advice?


Get a 256 card from Vanture it is a high speed card because of the 3 channels


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## gdaymate67 (Apr 29, 2019)

Noexcuse19 said:


> I bought a Vantrue N4 dash cam recently. It's a 3-channel dash cam(front, cabin, rear) so I'm wondering if a 128gb SD card is enough or should I get a bigger capacity SD card? Any advice?


Vanture will only take up to 256gb sd card


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