dbbarron

I obviously have too much time on my hands thinking about this in the off season.

There has been some discussion on this forum about which external HDD/SSD to use to store data. Thinking about this, the tether to the HDD does make 'lap' use of the 'laptop' a bit difficult. So, why not a Wifi attached NAS.

A relatively low cost NAS can house at least 1 (up to several) HDD/SSDs, and either host or attach to a WiFi network. This would permit Wifi connection from a laptop to the drive.

Moreover, in my setup, I use a hotspot which hosts the Wifi Network. Both the laptop and NAS could attach to this network providing NAS and Internet connectivity to the laptop without switching WiFi networks.

I was thinking that power could be a problem for the setup (needs 110v) which could be provided though AC at the track, or there are DC NAS available which could be run off a 12V battery or even in the car!

See for instance:
https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/EDS14

Again, too much time to think about systems I don't really need, but it is probably an interesting discussion topic.

winders

Why????

Any laptop should have more than enough internal storage to store all you lap data and videos for a season, much less a day......

If you have data at home you might use at the track, get a 4TB bus powered drive, load the data at home, and take it to the track with you.

Matt Romanowski

You're not very far out of the box! Teams that have multiple drivers, cars, or people who need to see the data and video from a session do exactly this sort of setup. They will immediately download the data and video from the car as soon as it stops and put it onto network storage. Then, whoever needs it can access. This way drivers can use their tablets or laptops to grab the videos and compare. Coaches can watch a driver's performance. Engineers can grab data and look at video.

This setup makes it much easier for data/video share and doesn't require one person to copy the files between devices.

winders

A pro team is way different than what amateurs have going on. Individual amateur drivers typically have their own laptops.

kgorman

I like the way you think!

We have used box.net for years for this purpose. Works awesome. We built something for the teams and called it a 'pit area network'

I use synology at home tho, love it,

Matt Romanowski

I'm not saying it's for everyone, but if you have a group of people who want to share their data/video, this is a good solution. The NAS server or wireless router with a USB 3.0 drive attached is a good and easy solution for people.

HoBoJoe

Spend that money on a coach. What problem are you trying to correct?

ProCoach

Matt's on the money here. No need for a NAS, just a high-quality portable USB 3.0 drive connected as "attached storage" to your own dedicated wireless router, then use an client like "8Player" so that all the drivers and engineers can see video on their iPads or other devices.

Joe Hullett shared this setup with me last year and it was very slick. While I do work with several multi-car teams, this is a good, low-maintenance solution for club and HPDE drivers. No one needs more complexity and fuss at the track.

Of course, with the VBOX video units, you can pop the SD card into a wireless portable HDD and access the info immediately on a native iOS application for both video and data.

dbbarron

Even for a single HPDE driver with no data sharing, it is sometimes easier managing a laptop without extra boxes and cables attached to it. After a session, that's one less thing to take out and attach to the laptop and to put away after use before the next session (assume one does not leave the external drive and laptop out).

To Peter's point, if one uses the RavPower unit, both iOS and OSx, Windows PCs can access the files wirelessly (and move them to mass NAS or router attached storage).

Of course all this adds complexity and it is really easy just to have a laptop with sufficient storage, but still fun exploring the ideas/options.

Matt Romanowski

There are lots of different routers to use. I haven't used one of these, but they look like they could be a good option https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T5XQE3U?ref=emc_b_5_i

With something like that, you could just toss the SD card from a SCHD and do the same as the Vbox to view the video.

dbbarron

My concern with those is speed. I have a similar unit from Kingston and the read speed over Wifi is only a few MB/s. a 1GB video would take 5-10min to download. That is why I started looking at more commercial solutions - much faster.

One thing I considered (again, I'm really overcomplicating things here, but this is an academic discussion anyway) was the Synology 12V rugged NAS; that could go in the car itself. Pull into pits, move SD card from logger to NAS (mount on top of/near each other) and you're data is instantly online. Of course, since you have to physically move the card, you might as well take it out of the car to your laptop!

Matt - I have no idea how the AIM products work, but they appear to have USB ports to access data. They appear to be slave USB devices (looks like an external drive). Many of the routers/NAS will act as USB hosts - Could they be wired to the AIM devices such that no card removal or cable insertions are needed to access AIM (e.g., Solo DL and SCHD) data?

Matt Romanowski

You're probably right on the speeds. That is probably why most people just go for a gigabit wireless router.

There are some ways you could use the USB to get the data real time, but I'm not sure it would be robust enough in the race car. The closest to that what people do with the Racecapture systems to live stream, though I'm not sure how robust that is.

dbbarron

I was not thinking about live streaming, just when pulled into the pits after a session. If the AIM boxes were already USB connected to the Wifi NAS or Router, one could just open their laptop and grab the data without connecting cables or bringing the laptop over to the car.

FYI, I tested a Kingston Mobillite G2 with a USB Toshiba Canvio SSD over Wifi to a MBP. Connecting the SSD directly to the MBP=200MB/s (USB3); Connecting the SSD through the G2 and WIRED to the MBP, 40MB/s (typical USB2); Connecting the SSD through the G2 with a WIFI connection to the MBP 2.5MB/s. This is likely due to the G2 processing speed as SSD, interface and Wifi speeds are all much faster. I suspect a better NAS (even a small one) would fix much of this speed issue.

ProCoach

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora...i-portable-ssd

Who needs a router?

I use these because the client is better than the RAVpower and they're like we all want to be, light and fast!

ProCoach

Actually, while the RCP streaming (which requires going through their server, like Race-Keeper) is cool, I wouldn't use it for mission critical stuff. For that, I recommend MoTeC over LTE...