SD card question

[Black Pearl]

Haven't come across those.

I do know SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I memory cards from experience in my D300s have very fast write speeds and are rock solid. Mine have even been through the washing machine with no problems.

[Manfred M]

Sandisk Ultra III and Sandisk Ultra Pro 8G

The Lexar Professional line has a similar quality (and price) to the Sandisk line.

I now use cards from both these companies and have never had a problem with their cards. Some of the less expensive lines; well let's just say, you get what you pay. I've had cards by other reputable suppliers fail in the field. I've learned my lesson and fortunately have not lost anything too serious.

[Colin Southern]

The Lexar Professional line has a similar quality (and price) to the Sandisk line.

I now use cards from both these companies and have never had a problem with their cards. Some of the less expensive lines; well let's just say, you get what you pay. I've had cards by other reputable suppliers fail in the field. I've learned my lesson and fortunately have not lost anything too serious.

My first experience with Lexar 128GB 1000x card in my 1D X - very impressive performance. It's quite hard to fill the buffer even at 12 FPS - and it clears it bloody fast when you stop.

[Downrigger]

Anyone triply re-format (reformat three times!) after downloading? - I was told by the shop where I got my Nikon to do that for longer life of the card. Seemed weird to me, but I do it. Also - How does one know when it's time for a new card, usually?

[Colin Southern]

Anyone triply re-format (reformat three times!) after downloading? - I was told by the shop where I got my Nikon to do that for longer life of the card. Seemed weird to me, but I do it. Also - How does one know when it's time for a new card, usually?

I'd put that squarely in the "don't believe everything you hear" category.

If anything, it'll wear a card out faster.

[shreds]

Sandisk Ultra III and Sandisk Ultra Pro 8G

I think I retired my Sandisk Ultras some years ago.

I have been using Sandisk Extreme Pro's 90MB/s for about 2-3 years now and I have never worn one out yet. (and there are better ones than this now available).

Physically damaged a card or retired it through capacity issues, yes.

I do wonder if using something faster than the Ultras might be your answer to the buffer issues, Graham?

Certainly some years ago I had similar speed issues, but never get it these days.

As we upgrade our cameras, all the associated accessories including the cards and computer need consideration for replacement too in many cases to get the maximum benefit. Yes they cost at the time, but have not had reason to gripe about their speeds. You can get at least 120MB/s and probably faster now.

[ajohnw]

Some cameras do create new folders for each camera that it's used in. Personally I don't do that. I buy a card and when it's full put it too one side and buy another. They can form a useful back up facility.

One factual aspect about them is that formatting and rewriting wears them out. Also if the formatting is done in the same style as a quick format on a PC it will slow writing down so in many ways it's best to fill them up. As touch screen cameras sometime show a keyboard in some menu settings I feel that the camera manufacturers should offer the facility to add folders or lacking that a folder based on date and time.

As to how long they will keep data the earlier stuff hasn't been around long enough to find out if it reaches predictions. It keeps evolving so nobody can be sure other than that more recent incarnations are very likely to wear out more quickly.

How do I know - just about every piece of firmware on the planet finishes up being stored in it including what I have worked on. I suspect many people are running flash drives in there PC's as well or maybe the novelty has worn off.

John
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[shreds]

I buy a card and when it's full put it too one side and buy another. They can form a useful back up facility. John -

What!!! you are either very wealthy or take relatively few photos!

I am out shooting professionally daily and my D3 & D3x fill up pretty quickly and my workflow is to ensure the cards are downloaded and the cameras are ready for action on the next day with all relevant backups taken. If I saved both twin cards from each camera everyday, then the business would soon fail.

It is fine I suppose for taking a limited number each year, but not really practical for me or those like me who have multiple GB/TBs of throughput to deal with and backup. If a card fails, so be it, but other aspects of the workflow are likely to wear or become dated, first.

(PS My cameras do actually allow custom folders to be created within the camera if desired).

[ajohnw]

What!!! you are either very wealthy or take relatively few photos!

I am out shooting professionally daily and my D3 & D3x fill up pretty quickly and my workflow is to ensure the cards are downloaded and the cameras are ready for action on the next day with all relevant backups taken. If I saved both twin cards from each camera everyday, then the business would soon fail.

It is fine I suppose for taking a limited number each year, but not really practical for me or those like me who have multiple GB/TBs of throughput to deal with and backup. If a card fails, so be it, but other aspects of the workflow are likely to wear or become dated, first.

(PS My cameras do actually allow custom folders to be created within the camera if desired).

I'd guess if I was doing the same sort of thing you do I would do the same. I'd be intrigued to know if you have had any wear out problems over what sort of time period.

I did manage to fill up an 8gb on holiday for 7 days. I shoot raw plus best quality jpg. Had to buy a card there from a side of the road market.

John
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[shreds]

That makes sense, John.

I am pleased to say I have had relatively few issues since going fully digital some 8 or 9 years ago.

So few that I can recount them:-

Nearly lost an image due to corruption during transfer in the early days, but recovered the RAW ok. I always have shot Raw and jpg.

The second one was due to an assistant jamming a card in a card reader incorrectly. Bent a pin in the reader and cracked the card. As a result it has never worked in slot one of the cameras but perfirms faultlesslessly in slot 2.

Never had any formatting or speed problems but replace cards around every three years on a rolling basis anyway. There are always faster/better cards coming out so it is a no brainer. Usually give the little pile of old cards to grateful friends once I have done with them. Strangely, they never refuse.

So overall, I am confident the way I use them is right for me. And that is a heck of a lot of frames, probably lost more in film days for other reasons!

[ajohnw]

I just looked at the nearly last shot I took with my digital IXUS over 13 years ago. Taken of the card and dark areas bought up a bit - always a problem on compacts more so with time as they have progressed. I dropped it while stumbling over rock just after taking this one and the card hatch clasp broke so had to hold it shut on the few others I took with it thanks to Canon's use of tiny switches. A mere 2mp and it records more actual detail than when they had got to 6.



John
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[Black Pearl]

I buy a card and when it's full put it too one side and buy another. They can form a useful back up facility.

What!!!

I wouldn't be able to get in my house for all the cards I'd have filled and kept over the years. My D200 before I wrote it off had cleared 50k shots and my D300s isn't far off that figure now. The K30 is less than a year old but is already up around 8k last I checked and these are just the last few bodies I've shot with. Add in the rest and I'd have a mountain of cards so large I would be fighting Mr Bonnington off from trying to climb it.

By the way cards do not slow down after you have formatted them or used them.
If this was the case every photographer who needs high performance would be screaming about it from every lamppost, forum, book, magazine, blog, soap box - you name it.
In fact if it were then Sandisk would tell you not to do it and instead to buy a new card from them - making them a small fortune in the process.

[ajohnw]

What!!!

If this was the case every photographer who needs high performance would be screaming about it from every lamppost, forum, book, magazine, blog, soap box - you name it.
In fact if it were then Sandisk would tell you not to do it and instead to buy a new card from them - making them a small fortune in the process.

If you google sd read write timing you will find that a ScanDisk manual pops up mentioning the erase problem, wear levelling and a number of things including read write life. It's an early one and only goes up to 1GB so is mainly concerned with SLC rather than MLC but does touch on that.

Anyway as I said - if they format in the same way as a quick format on a PC where effectively just the directory structure is erased they really would slow down when data is written over old data as it would have to be erased before the new data written and erases tend to take longer than writes. There are a number of techniques that can be used to get round this problem but the best simple technique involves filling it to the brim before erasing or hoping that the cards own internal wear levelling software will look after things automatically. It might just do that within limits however done to often it may well wear itself out as it uses the same storage as well.

: I would hope camera cards simply erase what has been used when they are formatted as the card will then direct storage to the area that hadn't been used - if any but once that spare space has been used it will start at the beginning again and there goes one of the ??? typical 100,000 write cycles. Many people believe MLC wont reach that level of endurance.

John
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[Black Pearl]

Camera formats simply write a new directory so whether there is data on the card or not is irrelevant as is can no longer be seen.
It is also irrelevant whether the camera writes to an area of the card that has data on it as the card controller spreads the load randomly over the entire card to maintain life and stability so again it doesn't see specific stuff that is already there.

Data does not need to be erased before it is written anew.

If cards got slower it would be one of the biggest talked about subjects on the net - it isn't because they don't. If you like to keep all your cards and only use then once that is fine - weird but fine - but no one else does that because there is no reason to. You can write to them thousands and thousands of times without errors, or slowing, or having to erase everything off them before use.

Cards do not get slower if you use them again.

[Colin Southern]

Camera formats simply write a new directory

Just to expand on that a little ...

- A high-level (normal) format writes new directory and re-initializes both copies of the file allocation tables (ie resets the disk metadata)

- A low-level format with also march through the data area and zero everything out there too.

The main difference is that with a high-level / normal format, the data is still recoverable until it's over-written (but the format operation is faster). With a low-level format the data is destroyed, but the operation takes longer.

[ajohnw]

Camera formats simply write a new directory so whether there is data on the card or not is irrelevant as is can no longer be seen.
It is also irrelevant whether the camera writes to an area of the card that has data on it as the card controller spreads the load randomly over the entire card to maintain life and stability so again it doesn't see specific stuff that is already there.

Data does not need to be erased before it is written anew.

If cards got slower it would be one of the biggest talked about subjects on the net - it isn't because they don't. If you like to keep all your cards and only use then once that is fine - weird but fine - but no one else does that because there is no reason to. You can write to them thousands and thousands of times without errors, or slowing, or having to erase everything off them before use.

Cards do not get slower if you use them again.

If you read the manual I mentioned you will find that the camera doesn't have complete control over where it writes and if it does what you say and does nothing else to get round the problems it will slow down writes as soon as it tries to write over existing data. Fact. The card itself has software in it that can only do so much to help. Actually it wouldn't surprise me if cameras did just what you say. Why should they care. What probably happens in practice when that is done is that the card writes the allocation tables to some area that hasn't been used so much as others - that's how wear levelling works. The stuff I work on is expected to have a few failures per million hours of operation as there is so much of it about.

Frankly I don't much care about if it's talked about on the net because iI have actually worked with the stuff - have you? By that I mean written software to look after that aspect and several other problems with it. There is rather a lot of that work whizzing around on roads all over the world as well,

It would be interesting to try and use an erased file recovery routine on one. The cards do their best to simulate a hard drive but things get a bit complicated once wear levelling and error recovery and several other aspect are added such as writing in one block size and erasing generally in a much larger one. That sort of information is in the manual and about on the web so please go and look.

John
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[Colin Southern]

If you google sd read write timing you will find that a ScanDisk manual pops up mentioning the erase problem

Not sure what scandisk has to do with any of this. We're talking about SD cards, not file system diagnostic utilities.

[ajohnw]

Sorry folks having seen 2 like votes I'm out on this subject. I fell off my seat laughing.

John
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[Black Pearl]

Every photographer in the world who uses their cards more than once is wrong and you're right because you only use yours once then keep them. I'm not sitting down so can't fall off a chair laughing but I shall giggle at you for quite some time and dine off this tale for even longer.