Just spent too much time "cruising" the Web and all Corvette Forums where the C8 infotainment system and moreso PDR (performance data recorder) is discussed along with SD cards and USB sticks. Here's what I found out but I stand to be corrected and welcome someone's input who is more tech-savvy or (better yet) has tested their C8 out already:
-the PDR is easy: it takes an SD card plugged in on the left side of the inner glove box. According to the manual you'll need a Class 10 (noted as "C10" in the SD card description) SD card and the exFAT format, to work in the C8 PDR. The newer SD cards are preformatted with exFAT so you shouldn't need to program these SD cards on your laptop to work in the C8. But if you've got an older SD card there are directions available on the Web, how to format it for exFAT on your laptop. Some have mentioned that if you attend the Ron Fellows Driving School, they give you a 16GB SD card but its memory fills up too soon, so it'll start to over-write the data, which is no good for preserving your memories from the track there. Same thing applies for regular street driving if you want to continuously record what's happening on the PDR and many do in case of an accident or other problems. So some recommend a minimum 64GB capacity for the SD card but some have suggested you can go up to 2TB (terra bites) for data capacity which is HUGE and will cost a small fortune right now. Prices for electronics always drop but 1TB and 2TB SD cards are the current "darlings" and cost lots. Many suggest the 256GB size is AOK since that will apparently hold a couple of days worth of driving data. There's some disagreement about how much memory the driving data will consume and some suggest recording in HD will use more sooner. So there's a difference of opinion about that. If you want to spend more, you can upgrade the memory from 256GB to 512GB and you're still a far cry from the 1TB cost.
Most seem to recommend a SanDisk SD card and there are many versions available on Amazon.ca. Just make sure you buy one with the C10 designation. There are several different speed ratings and this gets a little complicated since there's a speed for photos or video or whatever else. Some suggest you MUST buy at least the SanDisk with the "high endurance" description. Others want better speeds so they buy the more expensive "extreme pro" version which "Bucketoy" has shown you in his post above.
Finally, some suggest you avoid buying these SD cards from eBay since there are too many counterfeits out there which promise larger memory capacity but don't deliver. For that same reason, some suggest you buy direct from Amazon.ca rather than the alternative and somewhat cheaper "sellers" that are on Amazon.ca since some of those sellers may not even realize they're selling inferior SD cards.
-now onto the infotainment system: I'm not as well-versed in this area and need more research time or (better yet) I'll ask for input from those more knowledgeable on the Forum. You can't use only the SD card mentioned above since there's a USB port you plug into. So you need a flash-drive or a SD card "reader" (?) and apparently (I've not looked at the manual) the port is found in the center console of the C8. Some with C8's had trouble using their USB sticks and some said the FAT32 format was required whereas others said it was the exFAT format (?). Others quoted the manual as saying the audio extensions supported by the USB may include: .FLAC .MP3 .AAC .OGG AND .3GP, whatever those mean... Most said the MP3 extension worked well. Some mentioned that you had to be patient and give it time to index everything, especially if you had a lot of songs on memory. So you can't just plug it in and expect it to work; it needs some time to "get organized". Some complained that using a drive in the center console would stick out and take up too much room, so one person recommended buying a Flash Drive Pen Drive which would take up far less space.
My impression so far is you should get a compatible SD card with sufficient memory for the PDR and a separate USB flash-drive with sufficient memory to handle your song library, for the infotainment system, with MP3 being the safest extension, but again I welcome input from others.
That's it so far folks. Most of the above info came from the midengineforum. I hope others here will add to the above and especially the infotainment info. I'd like to be 100% organized before my new best friend arrives...
