SD card-do they go bad eventually?

jonny pallisey

jonny pallisey

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jonny
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Iv only had 2 or 3 sd cards but mine seem to mess up in that eventually the images on them cannot be deleted and/ or downloaded .These were never new cards in my time . Anyone on here know is it a known given that cards DO wear out in this way ?
 
They don't 'wear out' as such, but cards do have a finite lifespan, modern cards being a million read/write cycles.

But the most common cause of 'failure' is caused by user error, cards being ejected during read or write is the common error.

Try a deep format attached to a PC, and then a format in camera to sort an apparently faulty card.

But at the end of the day, compared to early digital days, cards are dirt cheap, there's little to stop you getting new ones.
 
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I gather deleating in camera isnt the best option either. Better to deleate when they have been downloaded and format the card in camera after (when you have safely backed up your pic)
 
swanseamale47 said:
I gather deleating in camera isnt the best option either. Better to deleate when they have been downloaded and format the card in camera after (when you have safely backed up your pic)
Click to expand...
that could be where my troubles been ,deleting inside the camera - thanks for that tip!
 
Phil V said:
They don't 'wear out' as such, but cards do have a finite lifespan, modern cards being a million read/write cycles.

But the most common cause of 'failure' is caused by user error, cards being ejected during read or write is the common error.

Try a deep format attached to a PC, and then a format in camera to sort an apparently faulty card.

But at the end of the day, compared to early digital days, cards are dirt cheap, there's little to stop you getting new ones.
Click to expand...
cheers for the info,had a feeling it was something im doing wrong more than the cards messing up on its own accord .
 
FWIW
Since the earliest digital camera I had (a Kodak DC210) with CF cards I have always formatted using my (card reader ) in my PC and once in the camera I either format again (to ensure it gets ready?) and if I forget that the camera automatically "readies" the card anyway, because afteral in practical terms a format is resetting the card to 'out of the box'.
 
jonny pallisey said:
cheers for the info,had a feeling it was something im doing wrong more than the cards messing up on its own accord .
Click to expand...
I think it’s easy to see them as ‘just a card’ and most people have never had to work with the principal of mounting and safely demounting discs, which is what were effectively doing when we insert / remove cards.
 
Interesting point re formatting:

Most people think that when we format a card, we overwrite or delete the data on the card, so subsequently file retrieval software is somehow magic.

But the reality is that every time you write a file, the software adds an item to its database recording where the actual data resides on the ‘disc’.

This database is called the File Allocation Table. And when you format a card (or disc), all you’re actually doing is overwriting that table. So the next time a file is saved, a new FAT is created, and the file system is likely to put it where it put the first one last time.

That’s why if you regularly empty your cards and one day have to retrieve data, you get a mix of new, fairly old and very old files.
 
Phil V said:
Interesting point re formatting:

Most people think that when we format a card, we overwrite or delete the data on the card, so subsequently file retrieval software is somehow magic.

But the reality is that every time you write a file, the software adds an item to its database recording where the actual data resides on the ‘disc’.

This database is called the File Allocation Table. And when you format a card (or disc), all you’re actually doing is overwriting that table. So the next time a file is saved, a new FAT is created, and the file system is likely to put it where it put the first one last time.

That’s why if you regularly empty your cards and one day have to retrieve data, you get a mix of new, fairly old and very old files.
Click to expand...
I had a customer who for three years or so managed to delete her holiday pics, I'd have to recover them. The first time I got pics going back years and years. She was amazed.
Still baffled how she managed to do it several times though... :(
 
Box Brownie said:
FWIW
Since the earliest digital camera I had (a Kodak DC210) with CF cards I have always formatted using my (card reader ) in my PC and once in the camera I either format again (to ensure it gets ready?) and if I forget that the camera automatically "readies" the card anyway, because afteral in practical terms a format is resetting the card to 'out of the box'.
Click to expand...
Ref my highlighted bit.

It really isn't.
Formatting deletes/re-writes the Table of Contents. Everything is still there (the 1s and 0s are not reset) but the pointers to them are deleted.
This is why:
1. Recovery software works
2. Military grade device wiping software resets the 1s and 0s multiple times to attempt to remove any memory of their previous setting.
 
Why delete at all? I never do. Both the camera and PC look at the Table of Contents and see nothing there; it is irrelevant that the image data is still there. After uploading my images from a shoot into LR, I put the card back in the camera and format. I have not yet suffered any card error or failure in the 19 years I have been using digital. To be fair some of my older cards have not been used for many years.

Dave
 
swanseamale47 said:
I had a customer who for three years or so managed to delete her holiday pics, I'd have to recover them. The first time I got pics going back years and years. She was amazed.
Still baffled how she managed to do it several times though... :(
Click to expand...
I once had a work colleague who had inadvertently deleted or formatted an SD card in her Fujifilm camera. I said 'no problem', but whatever the Fuji does I found it was irrecoverable by trying all the (4 or 5) recovery tools I would be using back then. IIRC the best in class tool I used was ZAR (Zero Assumption Recovery) and the one tried first.
 
jonny pallisey said:
that could be where my troubles been ,deleting inside the camera - thanks for that tip!
Click to expand...
Years ago I used to use the delete all instead of formatting option and I found it led to problems with the cameras intermittently reporting card errors when trying to take photos. I switched to using the format option in camera instead and the problems disappeared with the same cards and camera.

I've had many SD cards over the years and I can't really remember any of them failing apart from one the plastic fractured on. MicroSD cards I've had less luck with although not any problems recently.
 
LC2 said:
Ref my highlighted bit.

It really isn't.
Formatting deletes/re-writes the Table of Contents. Everything is still there (the 1s and 0s are not reset) but the pointers to them are deleted.
This is why:
1. Recovery software works
2. Military grade device wiping software resets the 1s and 0s multiple times to attempt to remove any memory of their previous setting.
Click to expand...
I don't disagree with you, as I said 'in practical terms' i.e. nothing visible behind seen.

The only time I used "scrubbing" software was around 2005 when we went to a deceased family members house to sort out belongings. I did not find any evidence of personal files and it was running Win95 IIRC. But this was overseas and we were not bringing it home.

I wiped the hard drive with again IIRC 20 passes of the software running from the 3.5inch floppy I took with me.
 
I only reuse my cards twice: I have the same files going to each card slot; when they’re full card 2 comes out and gets put in a filing box… card 1 is formatted and becomes the new card 2, and I add a new card 1.

It does sound a bit ridiculous, but it works for me (and the filing box is a further backup in the event of data loss). As @Phil V pointed out above, cards are cheap these days - especially when you compare it to the cost of film :)
 
I have had one that literally broke in half and another that the two sides of the shell came apart (not after any particular mistreatment I should add).

I was still able to get data off them, though.
 
I did find at one point my Nikon DSLR couldn't see images on a particular card, but a much lesser Nikon point and shoot could happily display them.
 
I always get higher capacity cards when they become affordable, not the highest capacity ones available but for my D850 and D500, spacious enough for a day's photography. My older 32Gb and 16Gb SD and CF cards tend to get donated to those who would appreciate them. So I tend to have 'newer' cards that I format in the cameras once I have downloaded the images. Never had a card go bad on me, even if I periodically delete images on camera.
 
Of course cards can go funny - as can anything. I had one that started scrambling images unpredictably, so retired it along with its same-age siblings as a precaution. It tends to be un-analysable, so think about strategies, & prepare your mind for failures. Life itself is a fallible structure. And how important is the problem, really? I know that we like to cling to things, but the planet is just a village & we're all in passage, mortal ...
 
Actually had an issue this morning with an SD card , second slot on my R5 , main card is a CF express
Took about 30 pictures and went to look at them on camera and came up with an error message, cannot be displayed
Luckily the SD card was only a backup, main card was fine
When I got home I noticed that the card wouldn’t format and couldn’t write new images to it
Will bin it not worth messing about with it have had it a few years anyway
It’s a Transcend 64 GB gold one , one of 7 the same that I have
Will buy some more cards to be safe
 
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