So you spent $500, 600, 1200 on a camera and trust your photos to a $20 SD card?

GeneV · 07-26-2010, 07:52 AM

Originally posted by rparmar

For less money I'd prefer simply to carry a netbook and be able to review the images as well. But my preference is always for travelling light and I have never shot more than 16GB on a single trip. On holidays I don't even bother with a computer but instead simply walk into an internet cafe and burn backups to DVD.

I use the netbook solution. They are so small and light now (as well as cheap) that it hardly pays to buy a backup HD.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I recently did go substantially over that 16gb on a trip. The netbook and a cloud backup helped keep the results safe.

GeneV · 07-26-2010, 07:58 AM

Originally posted by mikemike

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet or not. Always format the cards that you use in your camera, not your computer. Different card readers do a better job at handling worn memory blocks. If you format the card on your camera you will be sure that your camera isn't trying to write somewhere that it cannot read from.

It is also a good idea to reformat occasionally, I do it about once every 6 months, but if you fill up and empty out the card more frequently it might be a good idea to do it more often. You will see that you might lose a few dozen megabytes here or there after you reformat and that is because those blocks have become worn out.

That makes good sense. It also points out that the camera makers could, perhaps, do something more for this problem as well with some rigorous media checking.

The double E's out there can chime in on this, but it seems to me that as small and cheap as memory has become, it would be possible to put very large buffers in cameras and let them write to disk with verification, and without clearing the buffer until the data is verified. It would also be interesting if it were possible to add a second card for backup to the battery grip.

UnknownVT · 07-26-2010, 08:14 AM

Hard drive are very reliable - but they are still electro-mechanical devices that can be damaged by physical shock -
whereas an SDHC card is solid-state - other than physically breaking the casing, is basically shock-proof.

I'd be interested in statistics that show one being more reliable than the other.

Using more lower capacity cards and keeping one's photos while traveling/away on the cards does not seem that risky (to me).

This was from an older article: SDHC Cards vs Hard Drive vs SSD

" For example, the 16GB A-DATA SDHC card has an estimated endurance or lifetime of 1,000,000 write cycles. What does that mean is "real world" terms? You would have to constantly write, erase and re-write data non-stop for several years before you need to be concerned about failure. If your SDHC is 4GB with a formatted capacity of 3900MB, and you do nothing but write to it as fast as you can - at, say, 30MB/s - you'll still only be able to replace its entire contents every 130 seconds. At that rate, it'll take you 1,500 days (4.1 years) to hit 1,000,000 cycles.
In short, by the time you need to worry about SDHC failure we'll probably have 320GB SDHC cards or the computer industry will start using another type of storage medium. That said, every electronic device ever created can fail. We've had brand new hard drives and brand new SSDs fail in our office after less than a week of use. Bottom line, in most cases we don't believe using an SDHC card is any less safe than any other storage methods. "

Most failures are what is generally called "infant mortality" - ie: if they are going to fail - they are going to fail earlier on. So any new card should be treated with a little bit of suspicion until they prove themselves - use one's own judgment when any photo session might be more critical.......
and that will include the reputable brands - as no SDHC is immune -
see:
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

GeneV · 07-26-2010, 12:57 PM

A little bit off topic, but from that same article:

"One of the first clear limitations we encountered during our testing on multiple notebooks is that some laptops use slow built-in card readers. If your laptop isn't equipped with a high-speed built-in card reader then any SDHC card you use will run too slowly to be of any practical use as a second drive."

My reader in my HP Pavillion Notebook is so slow, that it is actually faster to access a drive on a wireless network than to read one of the fastest SD cards made plugged directly into the computer. Given the variability of these readers, Mike's advice about doing all formats on the camera makes good sense.

**rparmar** · 07-26-2010, 01:51 PM

I always carry a card reader with me. Tiny and plugs into any USB. Depending on the built-in readers of computers is indeed a bad idea.

GeneV · 07-26-2010, 02:39 PM

Originally posted by rparmar

I always carry a card reader with me. Tiny and plugs into any USB. Depending on the built-in readers of computers is indeed a bad idea.

I do, too for computers other than mine. Speaking of cost of the item, I find it interesting that these tiny readers which are given away free with some of the off-brand cards are blazingly fast compared to the ones built into the expensive laptop.

ziggy7 · 07-26-2010, 06:48 PM

Just a few suggestions:
I nearly always bring a second shooter (usually my vary talented daughter) on paying jobs. I check my images on the card after the first 10 or so and whenever there is a break in the action. I use inexpensive 2GB cards for paying jobs and never erase them. And I always bring a film camera and take some of the key photos with both digital & film. On the job we did Saturday I had the AF 70-210 zoom on the digital and the 50 1.4 on the LX.
Home

lurchlarson · 07-26-2010, 10:55 PM

Sandisk Ultra, Ultra II or Extreme III.

Had an Ultra II crap out on me. The lock switch on the side fell off and locked the card. Luckily I already had the photos on my hard-drive. Couldn't get the switch back on. This happen to anyone else?

Steve Beswick · 07-26-2010, 11:20 PM

Originally posted by Peter Zack

So you spent $500, 600, 1200 on a camera and trust your photos to a $20 SD card?

Well I use $13.50 SD cards, but in my defense, they are San-Disk Ultra II's.

($27 for a two-pack of 4 gig Ultra II's at Costco)

Peter Zack · 07-27-2010, 03:25 AM

Originally posted by lurchlarson

Sandisk Ultra, Ultra II or Extreme III.

Had an Ultra II crap out on me. The lock switch on the side fell off and locked the card. Luckily I already had the photos on my hard-drive. Couldn't get the switch back on. This happen to anyone else?

I had that happen once but not the card's fault. I actually bent the card accidentally and because it was a seamless white floor, I was able to find the lock button and put it back in. The card worked fine after that.

Originally posted by Steve Beswick

Well I use $13.50 SD cards, but in my defense, they are San-Disk Ultra II's.

($27 for a two-pack of 4 gig Ultra II's at Costco)

Holy crap that's cheap. Up here they are $40.00 per card.

patrickt · 07-27-2010, 03:38 AM

I've had one memory card fail but it was one of my expensive ones. I did not, however, extropolate that failure to warning everyone to avoid expensive SD cards.

rfortson · 07-27-2010, 05:21 AM

I've only had one card failure over many years of using a variety of cards in a variety of devices (going back to a 512k SDRAM card in 1994). It was a Patriot 8GB SD card last year. My sister had the same happen to her, so I've now put Patriot SD cards in "time out". Other than that, I buy on price. Memory is a commodity to me. I do try to by from established places rather than ebay sellers. I figure that's one way to avoid counterfeit cards (or known bad cards being resold as good).

Nowhere Matt · 07-27-2010, 05:43 AM

I would be happy to take any of these demoted SD cards. Use 'em in digital picture frames and mp3 player.
But of course Peter's fine example of giving retired devices to photo clubs or high schools is another thoughful act.

reeftool · 07-27-2010, 06:59 AM

Originally posted by Peter Zack

I had that happen once but not the card's fault. I actually bent the card accidentally and because it was a seamless white floor, I was able to find the lock button and put it back in. The card worked fine after that.

Holy crap that's cheap. Up here they are $40.00 per card.

The warehouse clubs such as BJ's and Costco have some very good deals on electronics, well worth the membership fee's.

Entropy · 07-27-2010, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by ducdao

Honestly, it's not the $20 card the problem, it's the brand that you bought. I for one always bought proven and known brands (Sandisk, Lexar and Kingston) for my SD cards and I got them cheap. For $20 these days you can get pretty decent Class 4-6 8G card from any of those brands. Perhaps, not Extreme III but is it really needed especially with Pentax DSLR? I have 2 x Class2 Lexar 8G and never had any write speed issue in my K10D and I only shoot RAW.

Glad you were able to recover your files, I find those recovery software very useful and fortunately I never had the need to use them...yet.

I agree. You can get FAR better deals than SanDisk (the Monster Cable of flash memory brands). However you need to be careful.

newegg.com's "most reviews" function is usually a good way to evaluate products. If it has 4 or 5 eggs and has lots of reviews, it's likely to be a solid product. I have had great results with Transcend and Patriot memory. Sometimes they'll release a dud product line, but you'll see the duds indicated in their reviews.

07-26-2010, 07:58 AM	#47
GeneV Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Albuquerque NM Photos: Albums Posts: 9,830	Originally posted by mikemike I don't know if this has been mentioned yet or not. Always format the cards that you use in your camera, not your computer. Different card readers do a better job at handling worn memory blocks. If you format the card on your camera you will be sure that your camera isn't trying to write somewhere that it cannot read from. It is also a good idea to reformat occasionally, I do it about once every 6 months, but if you fill up and empty out the card more frequently it might be a good idea to do it more often. You will see that you might lose a few dozen megabytes here or there after you reformat and that is because those blocks have become worn out. That makes good sense. It also points out that the camera makers could, perhaps, do something more for this problem as well with some rigorous media checking. The double E's out there can chime in on this, but it seems to me that as small and cheap as memory has become, it would be possible to put very large buffers in cameras and let them write to disk with verification, and without clearing the buffer until the data is verified. It would also be interesting if it were possible to add a second card for backup to the battery grip. Last edited by GeneV; 07-26-2010 at 08:06 AM.

07-26-2010, 08:14 AM	#48
UnknownVT Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: USA Posts: 1,812	Hard drive are very reliable - but they are still electro-mechanical devices that can be damaged by physical shock - whereas an SDHC card is solid-state - other than physically breaking the casing, is basically shock-proof. I'd be interested in statistics that show one being more reliable than the other. Using more lower capacity cards and keeping one's photos while traveling/away on the cards does not seem that risky (to me). This was from an older article: SDHC Cards vs Hard Drive vs SSD " For example, the 16GB A-DATA SDHC card has an estimated endurance or lifetime of 1,000,000 write cycles. What does that mean is "real world" terms? You would have to constantly write, erase and re-write data non-stop for several years before you need to be concerned about failure. If your SDHC is 4GB with a formatted capacity of 3900MB, and you do nothing but write to it as fast as you can - at, say, 30MB/s - you'll still only be able to replace its entire contents every 130 seconds. At that rate, it'll take you 1,500 days (4.1 years) to hit 1,000,000 cycles. In short, by the time you need to worry about SDHC failure we'll probably have 320GB SDHC cards or the computer industry will start using another type of storage medium. That said, every electronic device ever created can fail. We've had brand new hard drives and brand new SSDs fail in our office after less than a week of use. Bottom line, in most cases we don't believe using an SDHC card is any less safe than any other storage methods. " Most failures are what is generally called "infant mortality" - ie: if they are going to fail - they are going to fail earlier on. So any new card should be treated with a little bit of suspicion until they prove themselves - use one's own judgment when any photo session might be more critical....... and that will include the reputable brands - as no SDHC is immune - see: 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 Last edited by UnknownVT; 07-26-2010 at 08:22 AM.

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07-26-2010, 07:52 AM	#46
GeneV Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Albuquerque NM Photos: Albums Posts: 9,830	Originally posted by rparmar For less money I'd prefer simply to carry a netbook and be able to review the images as well. But my preference is always for travelling light and I have never shot more than 16GB on a single trip. On holidays I don't even bother with a computer but instead simply walk into an internet cafe and burn backups to DVD. I use the netbook solution. They are so small and light now (as well as cheap) that it hardly pays to buy a backup HD. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I recently did go substantially over that 16gb on a trip. The netbook and a cloud backup helped keep the results safe.

07-26-2010, 12:57 PM	#49
GeneV Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Albuquerque NM Photos: Albums Posts: 9,830	A little bit off topic, but from that same article: "One of the first clear limitations we encountered during our testing on multiple notebooks is that some laptops use slow built-in card readers. If your laptop isn't equipped with a high-speed built-in card reader then any SDHC card you use will run too slowly to be of any practical use as a second drive." My reader in my HP Pavillion Notebook is so slow, that it is actually faster to access a drive on a wireless network than to read one of the fastest SD cards made plugged directly into the computer. Given the variability of these readers, Mike's advice about doing all formats on the camera makes good sense.

07-26-2010, 01:51 PM	#50
rparmar Site Supporter Join Date: Jan 2008 Photos: Gallery Posts: 8,819	I always carry a card reader with me. Tiny and plugs into any USB. Depending on the built-in readers of computers is indeed a bad idea.

07-26-2010, 02:39 PM	#51
GeneV Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Albuquerque NM Photos: Albums Posts: 9,830	Originally posted by rparmar I always carry a card reader with me. Tiny and plugs into any USB. Depending on the built-in readers of computers is indeed a bad idea. I do, too for computers other than mine. Speaking of cost of the item, I find it interesting that these tiny readers which are given away free with some of the off-brand cards are blazingly fast compared to the ones built into the expensive laptop.

07-26-2010, 06:48 PM	#52
ziggy7 Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Florida Posts: 54	Just a few suggestions: I nearly always bring a second shooter (usually my vary talented daughter) on paying jobs. I check my images on the card after the first 10 or so and whenever there is a break in the action. I use inexpensive 2GB cards for paying jobs and never erase them. And I always bring a film camera and take some of the key photos with both digital & film. On the job we did Saturday I had the AF 70-210 zoom on the digital and the 50 1.4 on the LX. Home

07-26-2010, 10:55 PM	#53
lurchlarson Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Oregon, USA Photos: Albums Posts: 681	Sandisk Ultra, Ultra II or Extreme III. Had an Ultra II crap out on me. The lock switch on the side fell off and locked the card. Luckily I already had the photos on my hard-drive. Couldn't get the switch back on. This happen to anyone else?

07-26-2010, 11:20 PM	#54
Steve Beswick Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Ontario, California Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,736	Originally posted by Peter Zack So you spent $500, 600, 1200 on a camera and trust your photos to a $20 SD card? Well I use $13.50 SD cards, but in my defense, they are San-Disk Ultra II's. ($27 for a two-pack of 4 gig Ultra II's at Costco)

07-27-2010, 03:25 AM	#55
Peter Zack Pentaxian Moderator Emeritus Join Date: May 2007 Location: Edmonton Alberta, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 10,643 Original Poster	Originally posted by lurchlarson Sandisk Ultra, Ultra II or Extreme III. Had an Ultra II crap out on me. The lock switch on the side fell off and locked the card. Luckily I already had the photos on my hard-drive. Couldn't get the switch back on. This happen to anyone else? I had that happen once but not the card's fault. I actually bent the card accidentally and because it was a seamless white floor, I was able to find the lock button and put it back in. The card worked fine after that. Originally posted by Steve Beswick Well I use $13.50 SD cards, but in my defense, they are San-Disk Ultra II's. ($27 for a two-pack of 4 gig Ultra II's at Costco) Holy crap that's cheap. Up here they are $40.00 per card.

07-27-2010, 03:38 AM	#56
patrickt Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Oaxaca, Mexico Posts: 247	I've had one memory card fail but it was one of my expensive ones. I did not, however, extropolate that failure to warning everyone to avoid expensive SD cards.

07-27-2010, 05:21 AM	#57
rfortson Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Houston TX Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,129	I've only had one card failure over many years of using a variety of cards in a variety of devices (going back to a 512k SDRAM card in 1994). It was a Patriot 8GB SD card last year. My sister had the same happen to her, so I've now put Patriot SD cards in "time out". Other than that, I buy on price. Memory is a commodity to me. I do try to by from established places rather than ebay sellers. I figure that's one way to avoid counterfeit cards (or known bad cards being resold as good).

07-27-2010, 05:43 AM	#58
Nowhere Matt Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Nowhere Land Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 2,362	I would be happy to take any of these demoted SD cards. Use 'em in digital picture frames and mp3 player. But of course Peter's fine example of giving retired devices to photo clubs or high schools is another thoughful act.

07-27-2010, 06:59 AM	#59
reeftool Pentaxian Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Upstate New York Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 9,554	Originally posted by Peter Zack I had that happen once but not the card's fault. I actually bent the card accidentally and because it was a seamless white floor, I was able to find the lock button and put it back in. The card worked fine after that. Holy crap that's cheap. Up here they are $40.00 per card. The warehouse clubs such as BJ's and Costco have some very good deals on electronics, well worth the membership fee's.

07-27-2010, 09:08 AM	#60
Entropy Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Owego, NY Posts: 976	Originally posted by ducdao Honestly, it's not the $20 card the problem, it's the brand that you bought. I for one always bought proven and known brands (Sandisk, Lexar and Kingston) for my SD cards and I got them cheap. For $20 these days you can get pretty decent Class 4-6 8G card from any of those brands. Perhaps, not Extreme III but is it really needed especially with Pentax DSLR? I have 2 x Class2 Lexar 8G and never had any write speed issue in my K10D and I only shoot RAW. Glad you were able to recover your files, I find those recovery software very useful and fortunately I never had the need to use them...yet. I agree. You can get FAR better deals than SanDisk (the Monster Cable of flash memory brands). However you need to be careful. newegg.com's "most reviews" function is usually a good way to evaluate products. If it has 4 or 5 eggs and has lots of reviews, it's likely to be a solid product. I have had great results with Transcend and Patriot memory. Sometimes they'll release a dud product line, but you'll see the duds indicated in their reviews.