[Kerrowdown]

I forgot to mention, I also renew my cards on a regular rolling basis, so I don't really have any old cards, maybe this helps keep things right, I don't know.

I use only 4GB and 8GB Extremes (mainly the later nowadays) which I swap out of the camera when shooting allows, not necessarily when the cards full, so if the worst happens not all is lost.

I just want trouble free image capture and that's what I get from Sandisk. It may well be the same for other brands too, but as I said earlier I've only ever used Sandisk Extremes, and for me they work and that's a reason not to change.

[GeneV]

I disagree re brand. Top brands spent enormous amount of money and effort to build their branding through product quality and after sale services. Granted, nothing is error proof, even the best brands out there can't claim that but going with known and proven brands you put all the chances on your side.

Hmmm. I thought they spent that money building their brand through marketing and advertising.

Do you have some evidence that the money is spent on reliability testing? I'm not really arguing, just not assuming.

[philbaum]

Thanks for the thread. Despite the comment above about losing cards, i'm leery of the 8gig cards because i wouldn't want to lose that much all at once. I spent an hour doing promo shots for a local theatre the other day and switched cards half way through with the idea i'd never lose more than half the images. The idea for doing that came from some wedding photographer who was following that process. The other benefit is not running out of room on the card half-way through a productive moment. I think it helps too, to use the protective cases they come with. Perhaps for the static electric discharge concern expressed above.

[UnknownVT]

Would you trust a $$$multi-million aircraft that uses a 5 cent component?
Thousands of people do, including the military - and kind of betting their lives on it...... do you see the logic and parallel and how scare-mongering, irrelevant equating the two things seems?

I wrote the below a few days ago and it's kind of relevant here:

The main problem with users reporting is that it is based on a sample of one or very few samples.

Think of the hundreds if not thousands of SD or SDHC cards sold
then the sample of one or few then becomes statistically insignificant.

However that obviously does not take away from the validity of any individual report.

The general opinion is that SanDisk and Lexar have a well deserved reputation for reliability - that obviously does not mean they are always perfect (and I did choose that word deliberately).

However it's funny that the few reports of any SanDisk (or Lexar) having problems are put down to a bad sample or operator error -
yet anything from a lesser known brand -
gets instant advice like why use an unknown brand - use SanDisk or Lexar....
kind of biased isn't it? - based on very small samples - and what information does the advice giver have that's more than the average person - do they really have true failure statistics from all known brands to give such definitive advice?

The truth probably is that most known brands do probably work fine most of the time in any camera - we tend to hear of the horror stories (sample of one or few) but for each of those there are probably hundreds (perhaps thousands) of satisfied users that we do not hear from - that's just human nature.

If a particular SD/SDHC was that bad, that the majority fail - then there would be news from the industry and that product would not last long on the market -
even SD/SDHC cards with pretty poor reports (horror stories even) on places like Amazon are still very small samples -
and the fact that those continue to be on sale and listed probably means most of them do work just fine........

However it is down to the individual to make their own judgment - there are "unknown" brands out there - I certainly would think twice or refrain from buying an SDHC from a flea market - but then any other lesser know brand than SanDisk or Lexar surely cannot be that UNreliable?

For example Kingston gets mixed reviews (some pretty negative) - yet in terms of flash memory - did you know Kingston is actually a very reputable memory manufacture - they actually make a lot of the flash drives out there that are sold under other well known names - in fact one of the fastest USB flash drives by test and reputation is the Patriot XPorter XT - I have the 8Gb version and according to the USBDeview utility and their page of published test results it is made by Kingston.

[ducdao]

Hmmm. I thought they spent that money building their brand through marketing and advertising.

Do you have some evidence that the money is spent on reliability testing? I'm not really arguing, just not assuming.

Agreed that a big portion goes to to advertising & marketing but those alone won't make a brand a trusted one. Trusted brands have proven track of records for the quality of the products that they provide. Ask yourself, why do you favor a brand versus another? Is that because you like their recent ad campaign or perhaps it's a brand that you trust through exceptional experiences or/and recommendation from friends/family?

I'm in software/hardware outsourcing world and trust me, top brands spend a lot of money and resources for their product reliability testing.

[GeneV]

There is only so much of this I have time to do, but if you look at the financial statements of a couple of companies (I looked at Sandisk and Transcend) you find that Sandisk does spend twice as much on R&D as Transcend, but for both, R&D is a very small portion of gross revenue.

You also find that Sandisk makes about 2.5 times the net profit for each dollar of sales as Transcend. That appears to be where most of the price differential is.

[rparmar]

I can use a $1000+ and rely on a $4 film without any problems

I guess I should once again mention Choosing An SD Card.

[GeneV]

Agreed that a big portion goes to to advertising & marketing but those alone won't make a brand a trusted one. Trusted brands have proven track of records for the quality of the products that they provide. Ask yourself, why do you favor a brand versus another? Is that because you like their recent ad campaign or perhaps it's a brand that you trust through exceptional experiences or/and recommendation from friends/family?

I'm in software/hardware outsourcing world and trust me, top brands spend a lot of money and resources for their product reliability testing.

My wife is in marketing, and "trust me" there is a reason money is spent there. Indeed there are numerous examples across product lines of price differentials which have no other basis than brand recognition. Where would the basis for "reliability" as the primary criterion come from? I see no tests to back it up, and most reports from friends aren't really based in any kind of sample that makes sense. We all want to believe that a brand has meaning, and it may, in some cases. However, one should see some proof rather than assumptions.

[mysticcowboy]

Chances are that most cards from most makers are good. But why take chances? I do expect the quality control from Sandisk, Lexar and Kingston to be better than house brands. I still bargain shop for name brands. Class 4 cards have dropped in price a lot and are fine if you're not shooting video. No Pentax camera has a high enough burst rate to push beyond Class 4 specs anyway.

SD cards are tough, but it's still a good idea to be cautious. But from a reputable dealer to avoid fakes. Use the plastic cases to protect cards from static and physical damage. Remember that flash memory has a finite number of read/write cycles and retire old cards while they're still functional. Use a new card a few times before trusting it to a critical shoot. Have recovery software in case a card dies. Very often you can recover images from a card gone bad. These are all simple steps and worth the effort.

[GeneV]

I guess I should once again mention Choosing An SD Card.

Nicely written, but where are these "reliability tests" that some cards fail? I'm sincerely asking, because I don't find them on the net. Over and over, cards are tested for speed, but as many who have owned a high-performance car will say, speed and reliability are not the same thing.

[future_retro]

I trust all my photos to a 20 dollar card, but my 20 dollar card is an 8GB Sandisk Ultra II .Costco has them 2 for 40 bucks

[interested_observer]

Peter, I understand your position, especially since your livelihood and income are based on this. However, SD, SDHC, CF cards (and the like) are all based on flash memory, and flash memory does have a fixed lifetime. It is expressed in read write cycles...

"Flash drives use two primary types of flash memory. There is SLC and MLC memory. SLC is Single Level Cell memory and MLC is Multi Level Cell memory. GetUSB.info did an in-depth write-up about SLC and MLC flash memory if you’re interested, but for this article we have:

• SLC memory is good for about 100,000 write cycles.
• MLC memory is good for about 10,000 write cycles.

Most UFDs use MLC memory because it’s cheaper to make and allows manufacturers to offer more storage in a smaller space."

What is the Life Cycle of a USB Flash Drive?

So, if you use a card and unload it - once a day, followed by erasing it, that is 2 sets of R/W cycles. So a 10K R/W class card would be good for about 5 years (taking into consideration, that you may delete images on the fly, thus subjecting the directory to an increased amount of reading and writing).

So if you really want to be safe, only use it for 2.5 years. Date the card and after that crush it with a pair of pliers.

Also, have several and rotate them.

[UnknownVT]

There is no such thing as a "perfect" and problem free SDHC card -
SanDisk and Lexar do have a well deserved reputation - but -

Problems with SanDisk SDHC - even though not all of them were problem with the cards (eg: user error) there are nevertheless 22 pages of entries... that's not trivial - but to put things into perspective this is the SanDisk community support forum - - which means they at least have such a place for support.

[reeftool]

I always look for a good price on everything I buy. I do buy good cards or at least a known brand name. I have been using PNY Optima's without any issues and I get them at a good price from my local BJ's Wharehouse Club. All my current SD cards in use are PNY's. I have some Lexar's and they are much slower so I no longer use them. PNY has been around for a while and is a well known maker/distributer of computer memory and graphics cards as well as flash memory. There is a lot of junk out there. My daughter just bought a $10 USB jump drive at Target last week for a Powerpoint presentation she had to give for her job and it didn't work right out of the box. She used my card reader and one of my PNY cards, formatted in my K10D, without a hitch.

[Peter Zack]

Many valid points above. I was just relaying my own experiences.

Just a note, I do rotate my cards and give the old ones to my local photo club members here. Once it hits 1.5 years, they are retired. As mentioned by mysticcowboy and interested_observer. I never delete while shooting mostly because I always fear deleteing everything by accident. The card case I lost was getting close to retirement anyway. Most of the time, I use 4GB cards for the reasons mentioned above, I'd rather loose 2-3 GB than 7-8GB if that were to happen.

I shoot on average 50,000 images a year and have never has a single image lost on an Ultra or Extreme. As for static electricity and handling, they are stored in a Pelican SD case (great holder Btw).

This was the 3rd time with a card problem on a lesser brand.

The software is: Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery. Works well. Slow but very good. ParetoLogic is pretty good as well.

it just seems to go against logic to buy the best camera you can afford and the best lens and not at least try to get the best card.