Gear Guard for R2

[Jeremy3292]

Personally, I plan to use a thumb drive to avoid having a cable and hard drive rattling around.
I haven't done my research yet, but here are some options I'm considering:

• https://a.co/d/0gaeZWBV (Jeremy3292's recommendation above)
• https://a.co/d/09DXrywS (ultra compact, but unfamiliar brand)

As a follow up for those reading this:

The Samsung USB-C drive above is more rugged (operating temperature, heat sink, metal design, etc) and faster write speed than a normal cheapo USB-C drive. I read a bunch of older posts that this thumb drive did work for people on this forum. I have no direct experience with it myself but purchased one bc it was cheap-ish to try out when I get my R2. This didn't use to be an issue 1,2,3 years ago but with the price of RAM so high now people have to be a bit more discerning in what they buy. Obviously the $300 Samsung T7 Shield SSD works, but that's a pretty penny compared to the $75-$100 cost of it a year or so ago. There are other much cheaper SSD's available but a lot of their operating temperatures are too low and prone to failure...so YMMV.

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[rsfkff]

Has anyone formatted the drive and got it to work. I find when I follow the instructions on the screen and plug in the drive, nothing happens. Some research I have done says this isn't available yet.

 

[emroch]

Has anyone formatted the drive and got it to work. I find when I follow the instructions on the screen and plug in the drive, nothing happens. Some research I have done says this isn't available yet.

Yes, it works. Make sure your software is up to date and your drive has a good, solid connection. I had to try a few times to get the formatting to work on my old T5, and ended up switching to the Samsung flash drive linked earlier in the thread. I think not having a cable helped keep the connection more solid. The flash drive formatted first try and has been working ever since.

 

[Mos Eisley]

Yes, it works. Make sure your software is up to date and your drive has a good, solid connection. I had to try a few times to get the formatting to work on my old T5, and ended up switching to the Samsung flash drive linked earlier in the thread. I think not having a cable helped keep the connection more solid. The flash drive formatted first try and has been working ever since.

Did you go with the 512?

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Yes, it works. Make sure your software is up to date and your drive has a good, solid connection. I had to try a few times to get the formatting to work on my old T5, and ended up switching to the Samsung flash drive linked earlier in the thread. I think not having a cable helped keep the connection more solid. The flash drive formatted first try and has been working ever since.

If you know the drive is fast enough but getting error anyway… try editing the benchmark.log file with a text editor.

From Reddit:
Unplug the drive from your Rivian's USB port. Connect the drive to your computer or laptop. Open the root folder of the drive.Locate benchmark.log, which is a plain text file. Open it in a basic text editor like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). Find the text inside, which likely reads VERY_SLOW or too slow. Replace the text entirely with the single word READY (capitalized, no quotes). Save and close the file. Eject and plug the drive back into your Rivian.

That said a large high speed drive is not necessary (especially given today’s highly inflated ssd prices). Any drive with 400 mb/s read/write is faster than minimal requirements. I am not certain but I think it’s as low as 200. And min size is something like 128 gb. Larger size is needed only if you wish to keep lots of footage/incidents before drive fills and starts overwriting older recordings.

 

[emroch]

Did you go with the 512?

Yes, I went with the 512GB: https://a.co/d/04FAuzDI

 

[emroch]

If you know the drive is fast enough but getting error anyway… try editing the benchmark.log file with a text editor.

From Reddit:
Unplug the drive from your Rivian's USB port. Connect the drive to your computer or laptop. Open the root folder of the drive.Locate benchmark.log, which is a plain text file. Open it in a basic text editor like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). Find the text inside, which likely reads VERY_SLOW or too slow. Replace the text entirely with the single word READY (capitalized, no quotes). Save and close the file. Eject and plug the drive back into your Rivian.

That said a large high speed drive is not necessary (especially given today’s highly inflated ssd prices). Any drive with 400 mb/s read/write is faster than minimal requirements. I am not certain but I think it’s as low as 200. And min size is something like 128 gb. Larger size is needed only if you wish to keep lots of footage/incidents before drive fills and starts overwriting older recordings.

Good tip, thanks. I wanted to use the T5 simply because I had it already and could save $150, but it is only 250GB (vs the 512 flash drive or 1TB SSD options) and requires a cable which I wasn't thrilled about. It looks like the T5 is/was actually better for continuous writing than the T7 though, so I was hopeful that it would just work. It gave me just enough trouble that I decided the flash drive would be a cleaner and easier solution.

 

[thk808]

https://a.co/d/0eM05PLG
I use this drive for my R2. Not an ssd but it’s plenty fast enough, cheap and worked on plugin. The R2 does a speed check when formatting to make sure your drive is compatible but 20 MB/s as a requirement is pretty slow for today’s standards.

 

[rsfkff]

Thanks for all of the advise, but still nothing. I started using SanDisk portable, 1TB. Nothing happens when I plug it in while in Gear Guard format screen. I formatted it in my PC still nothing. Swapped cables and tried a flash drive but it has no effect. Kind of stumped.

 

[emroch]

Thanks for all of the advise, but still nothing. I started using SanDisk portable, 1TB. Nothing happens when I plug it in while in Gear Guard format screen. I formatted it in my PC still nothing. Swapped cables and tried a flash drive but it has no effect. Kind of stumped.

Sounds like it's not the drive or how you're connecting it, so have you tried a vehicle reset? Start with a soft reset using the halo wheels.

 

[rsfkff]

Yes did a full reset.

 

[emroch]

I would reproduce the issue and then use the mobile app to request service. The Rivian Assistant will gather diagnostics that probably won't reveal anything but might be useful for engineering. There's probably not much they could actually do at a service appointment, but if you open the ticket and start messaging them they might be able to capture logs or something to escalate.

 

[rsfkff]

Thanks, I figured next step was to open a ticket. One other minor failure i have is the charging pad doesn't work. Maybe there is a wire harness that is common, Nether matter too much.

 

[vmi9d3]

Yes, I went with the 512GB: https://a.co/d/04FAuzDI

How far out does the flash drive extend inside the console? Any concerns with hitting it as things are put in and out of the console?

 

[emroch]

How far out does the flash drive extend inside the console? Any concerns with hitting it as things are put in and out of the console?

No, it is nicely tucked away. The port is in a little cutout so it's not protruding into the main space at all.

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