Memory Card Fail

[Kwazy]

Has anyone ever had a memory card of any kind fail catastrophically?
I've only had a micro-SD card fail once, and was still able to read all the data off of it, just couldn't write to it anymore; so really it wasn't all that bad.

I'm just trying to identify the likelihood of losing data on a card completely, and if it's worth writing to two cards simultaneously if I'm shooting something I can't ever repeat.

 

[tpatana]

I've never had a failure but for very important items I record on two cards. Usually RAW on CF Express and Jpeg on SD.

 

[Grahamk]

I’ve not had a failure since starting digital with the 20D.

 

[koenkooi]

Has anyone ever had a memory card of any kind fail catastrophically?
I've only had a micro-SD card fail once, and was still able to read all the data off of it, just couldn't write to it anymore; so really it wasn't all that bad.

I'm just trying to identify the likelihood of losing data on a card completely, and if it's worth writing to two cards simultaneously if I'm shooting something I can't ever repeat.

At a previous job we had products that used SD and micro-SD as their main storage for their operating system and data. We quickly discovered that sudden power loss would kill the cards after a handful of times. After that we noticed that the card would detect what kind of filesystem was being used and optimize for it. Anything besides VFAT would kill the card after a few months, the firmware on the card wouldn't spread out the erasure cycles.

And these were cards we bought straight from Kingston in bulk! Sandisk cards were a lot more reliable, but those also didn't like sudden power loss.

With SD cards I've personally had over a hundred fail, but only once had I one fail that I used for photos. Almost all of the non-catastrophic failures for photo cards are about the casing: the tiny ribs between the contacts break easily. I've switch to Sony Tough for SD cards a few years ago and have had zero issues.

I also like that I don't have to bend back CF pins in my 7D anymore

 

[copperswede#2]

Has anyone ever had a memory card of any kind fail catastrophically?
I've only had a micro-SD card fail once, and was still able to read all the data off of it, just couldn't write to it anymore; so really it wasn't all that bad.

I'm just trying to identify the likelihood of losing data on a card completely, and if it's worth writing to two cards simultaneously if I'm shooting something I can't ever repeat.

I had a card that the camera could not read , the camera is an m5. However had a card reader that could download the photos to my computer. The card is an SanDisk 32GB 60mb/s SD card.

 

[Kwazy]

Interesting responses here. Keep them coming!
So far it looks like nobody's actually lost any photos due to a card failing.

 

[MikeZ]

I've never had a failure since switching to digital some 15 years ago.

 

[Copterdoc]

Has anyone ever had a memory card of any kind fail catastrophically?
I've only had a micro-SD card fail once, and was still able to read all the data off of it, just couldn't write to it anymore; so really it wasn't all that bad.

I'm just trying to identify the likelihood of losing data on a card completely, and if it's worth writing to two cards simultaneously if I'm shooting something I can't ever repeat.

I think that the issue is one of cost. If you are getting paid for these photos or you value them highly, then shooting two cards is worth the expense. If not, then do as I suspect the vast majority of shooters do and shoot to a reliable brand media and accept the risk. If you are a paid shooter, then there may very well be a liability issue that would necessitate the additional expense. JMHO

 

[MikeZ]

I have to agree with the above comments, especially based upon my own experience of never having a card fail (I hope that I haven't jinxed myself). But I think it might behoove us all to replace these cards on some periodic basis as a preventative measure, or perhaps run some disk maintenance software on our existing cards to determine their health. SanDisk used to provide a link along with the packaged memory card to just such an app on their web site. Hard disk/RAM/USB memory sticks and our beloved memory cards do have a measured or extrapolated life and we need to prepare ourselves for that terminus to avoid a catastrophic failure. Sadly, what that life span is I don't know.

 

[copperswede#2]

I had a card that the camera could not read , the camera is an m5. However had a card reader that could download the photos to my computer. The card is an SanDisk 32GB 60mb/s SD card.

Forgot to mention the card was brand new!