Degeneration of SD cards

[Susie]

How often do the cards for cameras need to be replaced, please? Does an old card affect the image quality?

Thanks,

[Ian Pratt]

I have had a couple of "cheap" CF cards fail but now I buy premium cards and have had no problem. As long as the card works and the images are okay stick with it.

[MikeOxon]

Memory cards aren't chemical devices, like batteries, so they don't gradually degrade. They can fail suddenly but, generally, if they are working, they are ok, and picture quality will certainly not change with age. The only thing to check, in the way of routine maintenance, is that the contact strips are clean. A q-tip and alcohol will look after this, if needed.
Mike

[Susie]

Many thanks, both. My concern was that constant overwriting would, in time, cause a loss of clarity so you have put my mind at rest.

[Pawpawsaurus]

Although flash memory is solid state, after it's been written to many, many times, it will eventually wear out.
Here's an extract from the SanDisk SD Card Product Manual dated 2003, since when the specification may well have improved.

http://alumni.cs.ucr.edu/~amitra/sdcard ... rdv1.9.pdf

"1.8 Endurance
SanDisk SD cards have an endurance specification for each sector of 100,000 writes typical
(reading a logical sector is unlimited). This far exceeds what is typically required in almost
all SD Card applications. Therefore, extremely heavy use of the card in cellular phones,
personal communicators, pagers and voice recorders will use only a fraction of the total
endurance over the device’s lifetime. For instance—it would take over 10 years to wear out
an area on an SD Card based on a file of any size (from 512 bytes to maximum capacity)
being rewritten 3 times per hour, 8 hours a day, 365 days per year.

With typical applications, the endurance limit is not of any practical concern to the vast
majority of users."

Firmware in the card itself tries to ensure that data is written evenly across the memory so that no part of it fails prematurely.

So for practical purposes, it's more likely that errors will be caused by dirty or worn contacts than by internal failure of the memory itself.

Paul

[Dave McCormick]

I bought a 16GB SDHC card of play.com and it didn't work well for ages but the £4 price probably matched that, but somehow now it works fine. I do find that premium cards work best over cheap ones that can fail, had that happen a number of times.

I have a 512MB SD card that I have had for 5 years and its starting to get slow at writing/reading from, even when defraged regularly, then again I have used it nearly everyday at least once on/off for about most of the time. After about 3-4 years I usually buy some extra cards anyway.

[hooklink]

Hi...
I work in a photographic shop, and we get alot of customers coming in with problems with memory cards, the most important thing to do to your card is "Format it" none of the books tell you to do this, but if you want your card to continue working perfectly, it is vital that you do this. If you keep using "Delete" it will leave bits of information dotted around on your card, and eventually the camera will try and place an image on that remaining info, the result is either a corrupt file, or it can really mess up the whole card. When you use "Format" it clears everything off the card, so you start each session with a clear card................

Stewart...............

[LCPete]

Hi...
I work in a photographic shop, and we get alot of customers coming in with problems with memory cards, the most important thing to do to your card is "Format it" none of the books tell you to do this, but if you want your card to continue working perfectly, it is vital that you do this. If you keep using "Delete" it will leave bits of information dotted around on your card, and eventually the camera will try and place an image on that remaining info, the result is either a corrupt file, or it can really mess up the whole card. When you use "Format" it clears everything off the card, so you start each session with a clear card................

Stewart...............

Good advice that
I was told a while ago that its important to format in camera rather than delete the files using the PC. Havent had any problems since doing that

[MikeOxon]

Hi...
the most important thing to do to your card is "Format it"

Good advice, and welcome to the forums! I'm sure your experience with customer problems will be very useful.

As an additional tip: sooner or later everyone deletes an important photo from a card and it is worth knowing about the zero assumption recovery program (free) from http://www.z-a-recovery.com/digital-image-recovery.htm

In many cases, it will even recover after an unwise format, providing you haven't taken more pictures to over-write the card.

Mike

[Lee Hurrell]

Some good advice here, thanks all.

I have had a problem with 2 memory cards. I bought a new 8GB card last year to go on holiday with and had real problems getting it to work in my Canon 10D. I figured it was perhaps an older camera / newer and bigger card compatability issue.

Amazon refused to take it back (after 30 days) but Sandisk replaced it or gave me a refund (via Amazon) in the end.

I got a new 8GB one and it's been working fine all year until my holiday just recently where the same thing happened. A few corrupt files with the first shots taken of the day and eventually no writing to it at all.

I reformatted it (always carry a spare card and also had a laptop on holiday - phew) and it seemed to be fine.

It would make sense that the extent of memory hadn't been used since last year's holiday and the odd bits of data being over written further into that memory causing formatting problems.

I do still wonder if the older camera / newer bigger card thing would cause an issue though?

Cheers

Lee

[dilettante]

I have had a problem with 2 memory cards. I bought a new 8GB card last year to go on holiday with and had real problems getting it to work in my Canon D10. I figured it was perhaps an older camera / newer and bigger card compatability issue.

D10 (PowerShot) or 10D (DSLR)? Assuming the latter, this page suggests 8GB should be OK (but no bigger).

[Lee Hurrell]

Hi Dilletante,

Sorry, I meant DSLR 10D.

That page is just black with no text on my PC here at work?

Cheers

Lee

[dilettante]

That page is just black with no text on my PC here at work?

The relevant bit from that page:

A.1 What is the maximum size of memory card I can use in my camera?

Note: A SD card which follows the SD standard fully is max 2 GB.

Canon EOS 1000D: all SD and SDHC cards*
Canon EOS 1100D: all SD, SDHC and SDXC cards*
Canon EOS 300D: max 8 GB CF (larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 350D: max 8 GB CF (larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 400D: all CF cards*
Canon EOS 450D: all SD and SDHC cards*
Canon EOS 500D: all SD and SDHC cards*
Canon EOS 550D: all SD, SDHC and SDXC cards*
Canon EOS 600D: all SD, SDHC and SDXC cards*
Canon EOS D30: max 2 GB CF
Canon EOS D60: max 2 GB CF
Canon EOS 10D: max 8 GB CF (larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 20D: max 8 GB CF (larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 30D: all CF cards*
Canon EOS 40D: all CF cards*
Canon EOS 50D: all CF cards* **
Canon EOS 60D: all SD, SDHC and SDXC cards*
Canon EOS 7D: all CF cards* **
Canon EOS 5D (firmware older than 1.1.1): max 8 GB CF (larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 5D (firmware 1.1.1 and later): all CF cards*
Canon EOS 5D Mark II: all CF cards* **
Canon EOS 1D: max 2 GB CF (4 GB if preformatted as FAT16 with 64K clusters)
Canon EOS 1D Mark II (firmware older than 1.2.6): max 2 GB SD, max 8 GB CF (larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 1D Mark II (firmware 1.2.6 and later): max 2 GB SD, all SDHC cards*, all CF cards*
Canon EOS 1D Mark II N (firmware older than 1.1.2): max 2 GB SD, max 8 GB CF (larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 1D Mark II N (firmware 1.1.2 and later): max 2 GB SD, all SDHC cards*, all CF cards*
Canon EOS 1D Mark III: max 2 GB SD, all SDHC cards*, all CF cards*
Canon EOS 1D Mark IV: max 2 GB SD, all SDHC cards*, all CF cards* **
Canon EOS 1Ds: max 8 GB CF (probably larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II (firmware older than 1.1.6): max 2 GB SD, max 8 GB CF (larger than 8 GB if preformatted)
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II (firmware 1.1.6 and later): max 2 GB SD, all SDHC cards*, all CF cards*
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III: max 2 GB SD, all SDHC cards*, all CF cards* **

[Lee Hurrell]

Thanks again.

Cheers

Lee