Nikon D800 what cf card to buy?

[ajohnw]

I suppose they can report the capacity as they like but underneath it all binary stuff works power of two wise. There does seem to be a move to get away from powers of 2 as far as the general public is concerned. Personally I am more concerned about how long they last. Single level flash has long since gone. I know how long that should last but these days the multi level info is based purely on predictions and we are stuck with it to get the storage sizes people need.

When buying I strongly suspect that very few companies actually make the stuff in them - another rats nest. Bit like PC screens - many many monitors but as far as I can tell only 3 companies that make the screens.

Of topic - I'm in a bad mood. I need to buy a smart phone to get a leadless remote for my E-M1.

John
-

[benm]

I found a similar link John - I had always assumed it was a 1024 derivative but recalled reading about the decimal GB somewhere in the past.

Its not really relevant in the grand scheme of things but does niggle away.

Lexar quote:

Actual usable memory capacity may vary. 1GB equals 1 billion bytes.

Verbatim do the same thing:

Available capacity depends not only on the disk drive model, but also on how the operating system reports capacity figures. Some disk capacity is used for pre-loaded software, formatting and other functions, and therefore is not available for data storage. For example, a “320GB” model will not show as 320,000,000,000 bytes available.
· 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes
· 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes
· 1 TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes

Its enough to drive you nuts :roll eyes:

You are right, it should be and is based on 1024. But all the manufacturers are lying. In fact, there was a lawsuit several years ago on this issue and that is why all manufacturers have asterisked footnotes saying that 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes, etc. To a computer 1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes.

[Colin Southern]

OK - whilst everyone is busy debating, here's some real-world advice:

1. Stick with Sandisk or Lexar.

2. Buy something around the 256 / 512GB mark

3. Go make some pictures!

[benm]

2. Buy something around the 256 or 512MB mark

Those cards would be of interest to a museum curator.

[Colin Southern]

Those cards would be of interest to a museum curator.

Quite right - I'll put it down to too many very late nights!

What I meant to say was ...

... Buy something around the 32GB / 64GB mark!

Personally, my card of choice is a Lexar 1000x 128GB. I think people can get a bit carried away with card speeds though - at the end of the day most cameras have enough RAM to buffer around 3 seconds at the highest burst speed - and if one is needing longer bursts than that then they may want to question if they're shooting stills or a video.

[Black Pearl]

You have a what capacity card?

[Colin Southern]

You have a what capacity card?

*** Cough ***, like I said, 128GB *** Cough ***

I think I'm in la-la land today when it comes to card capacities

[Mark von Kanel]

Cards don't slow down the more you use them, they simply don't work that way.

As to buying smaller cards then that's fine with most cameras but you need to remember the D810 isn't 'most cameras' and can fire out gigantic 73Mb files - that will fill up your card pretty darn quickly.

Not being one that likes disseminating false info i mailed Lexar with the following question.

Hi,

I read an article somewhere that stated that if you repeatedly only part
fill your memory card before re formatting that the data partitions at the
front of the card would be used more often and would fail earlier than the
ones at the back of the card.

as these individual partitions fail the card takes longer to find the next
functioning partition to store that bit of data and this slows the card
down. is this true?

And here is the reply.

Hello Mark,

Thank you for contacting Lexar. In the early days of flash memory this would have been the case. However, most modern flash memory and all products that Lexar sells include a feature called "wear leveling". Wear leveling is designed to evenly use all "cells" on flash memory evenly. By design, most flash memory will randomly write "blocks" of data in non sequential order to achieve the fastest speeds thus spreading the data out over the entire card.

When using flash memory there are two main things to ensure the longest life span. The third thing is for using cards with cameras.

1. Ensure the device is always safely ejected from the device before unplugging. For cameras, this means waiting until all photos are written to the card and powering the camera off before removing the card.

2. Cleaning and refreshing the File Allocation Table (FAT). This is done by doing a full format on the computer.

3. Before each use and when moving from camera to camera, format the card with the cameras internal formatting function. This ensures the card and camera are in sync.

I guess i read an old article!

[ajohnw]

Recommendation 2 is interesting. Flash memory has one problem as far as speed is concerned. It's fastest when writing to unused locations. Try and write to a previously used locations and it's a lot slower so rather than use a trim instruction as per flash drives it seems that cards need a complete format. There are also more limitations on the size of areas that can be erased. The PC format clears it completely.

The reply also indicates that the wear levelling is a lot simpler than the procedure I mentioned earlier. Basically it sounds like the cards never really deletes anything so it will be full when so many GB has been written too it rather than when it has that many live rather than deleted files on it.

I'd also guess that the article on continuously over writing the same area of memory is a web myth as this and other similar memory types have always had the same problem mentioned above - write time as against erase and then write times. A huge difference.

John
-

[Mark von Kanel]

I'd also guess that the article on continuously over writing the same area of memory is a web myth as this and other similar memory types have always had the same problem mentioned above - write time as against erase and then write times. A huge difference.

I think it was just an old article John, as lexar support said it used to be the case that cards did slow down in this way. Its interesting stuff though and to tell truth im glad that i dont have to be so OCD about filling my cards before formatting!

Recommendation 2 is interesting

Yes i hadnt heard this before but i suppose in the light of your more detailed analysis it makes sense.

The reply also indicates that the wear levelling is a lot simpler than the procedure I mentioned earlier.

Clever bugger!

Another day another lesson learnt!

[ajohnw]

I've worked on memory of this type at a hardware level. In some ways the article may be correct - if the card fills and then starts using space that has been previously used but marked as deleted which is probably what they do. This will really slow the card down. I've only worked on the chips not the cards but these do have the erase and then write built in. Cards may have it too.

Best life is going to be low level format when full or nearly full. Afraid I buy a new one and use them as a final back up. That might not be a good idea now multi level flash is being used as no one has a clear idea how long data will be retained. The cells maintain a sort of voltage. Single level used a some volts = 1 no volts 0 type approach. Multi level started with 0,1,2 stored. Pass as to where it is now but 4 levels would obviously be nice and 8 even better but hopefully un achievable. It isn't even clear if they put error recovery in them. They do on solid states disks but there are alternative file systems on the way that aim to self heal as even modern magnetic storage is getting nearer and nearer the edge of late.

John
-

[Colin Southern]

I've worked with flash memory extensively at a consumer level ...

... I stick em in the camera and go make pictures!

[Shadowman]

I buy what the manual recommends, if I mistakenly purchase one not mentioned then I'll experiment. Never really had any issues with cards, it's usually the camera setup that slows down the process (long exp NR, multiple exp.) for me.

[Mark von Kanel]

I've worked with flash memory extensively at a consumer level ...

... I stick em in the camera and go make pictures!

Tut Tut Colin any real tog knows that its not about taking photos, its about buying the biggest fastest, most expensive gear that you can preferably with huge amounts of pixels/Mb (whatever your poison) and talking / bragging about them...

Taking pictures.... ughh makes me shudder to think about it... wash your mouth out with soap...

[ajohnw]

I just used a card that was around for my EM's. I should look in the manual and would expect to see a card performance level mentioned. Can't remember what they look like but I think cf's go cf1, cf2 cf3 etc I suppose it comes from working on hardware but I am inclined to take absolutely no notice of so many Mb / sec as it's meaningless. It really is too. When some genre of cards can accept serial writes on several lines they will only achieve this figure if the camera supports it and they will happily work with less.

John
-

[ajohnw]

This post reminded me to have a look in the manual to see what should be in camera. Olympus don't help much but do show the correct card logo SD XC I. This mean that the camera should provide the correct voltages to make best use of ultra high speed I but not II. The X relates to the file format and as I don't have any need for over 32gb HC will be fine.

Looked at what is in the camera currently and both have HC I logo's so that's ok. Thought I might buy some spares as I have none left so looked on ebay. Loads of HC I cards but why do some show 30 mb/sec when HS 1 is theoretically capable of 50 mb/sec. The ones in the camera, ScanDisk have 45 mb/sec printed on them. Looking further these are around.

So I have to eat my words about that style of rating, purely mb/sec is meaningless but on the other hand the official rating signified by the logo having the HC or XC I is important. A straight HC would slow the camera down and a HC II wouldn't be fully utilised as the camera doesn't supply the correct voltages. I believe they are backwards compatible.

I thought the SD people were "better" than that. Seems that the 30 and 45 mb/sec cards are all referred to as class 10 on ebay. Pass on why they do that as the important things seems to be mb/sec and the logo on the card.

John
-

[nimitzbenedicto]

Tut Tut Colin any real tog knows that its not about taking photos, its about buying the biggest fastest, most expensive gear that you can preferably with huge amounts of pixels/Mb (whatever your poison) and talking / bragging about them...

Taking pictures.... ughh makes me shudder to think about it... wash your mouth out with soap...

zakly! hehehe....

[Colin Southern]

Tut Tut Colin any real tog knows that its not about taking photos, its about buying the biggest fastest, most expensive gear that you can preferably with huge amounts of pixels/Mb (whatever your poison) and talking / bragging about them...

Fear not Mark, for I certainly get accused of being that type too. I like to think that I walk the walk in addition to just talking the talk though.

[D L]

I also see that a brand called transcend have some cards? Never heard of this brand, are cheaper than lexar and sandisk.

My experience with Transcend is with MicroSD in a tablet. I ran a benchmark test on the card in a card reader and it performed well against the Sandisk equivalent. It also performed well in the tablet, but that is mainly continuous read (movies etc. and random write (app data) function. It performed reliably up to the point the tablet was stolen.
The cost saving on the Sandisk was only minimal. I only bought it as supposedly it would outperform the Sandisk on seuqential read. That was the only parameters (from memory) the Sandisk was better than the Transcend. If you own a D800, you probably value your photos more than to trust a brand not widely used in photography.

I can recommend the Transcend DF8 USB 3.0 external card reader.

As a general comment, why don't camera manufacturers provide the max write speed the camera is capable of?