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Why are SD cards too fragile?
- Thread starter jwolf6589
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Yes good point. As an example, as FAT based file systems are generally from the windows family tree and Mac is from a unix/Linux file system family, then they way they deal with file permissions is different. So, when you plug in a storage medium that has a FAT based file system, every file you access on a Mac adds a file to the file system with a period at the beginning of the file name. This file contains additional permissions and file information that the FAT file system doesn’t understand. On a Mac or a Linux machine this is fine as any file where the first character is a period tells the system it is hidden. So your mac ignores them largely for general usage beyond reading them for file information.My photography/videography workflow is as follows:
- Shoot to SD cards
- Copy files to a computer
- Verify the files
- Backup the files to a NAS and other drives
- Format the cards in the camera to get them ready for the next shoot
So the concept of long term storage on SD cards is foreign to me! This is quite a fascinating thread!
I've heard that you're not supposed to shoot more pictures to a card after you mount it on a computer. The computer might write invisible/junk files to the card and it might confuse the camera. That's why it's always recommended that you format the cards in the camera before your next shoot.
The OP clearly hasn't had any problems reshooting cards. But that's just not a game I'm willing to play.
Some cameras don’t like those files.
Another one is an issue on my Z6. I was shooting when on vacation and taking pictures fine. Went back to our hotel and put the card in a reader on my laptop and did some culling direct on the card.
The next day when shooting the Z6 was throwing image errors at me and I panicked thinking the XQD card had failed so I bought a new card on amazon prime and had it delivered to me on holiday at a price premium of course. I then worked out that the card - as most cameras do - has an image database in one of the other folders that we routinely ignore and as some of the image files had disappeared form the folder but were still in the database, then it threw a wobbler every time I took an image. The good news is that it did save the images before failing to update the database but wow… bit of a worrying day.
So yes, a good idea to shoot - transfer - cull - reformat in camera - repeat.
Oh Christ here we go…. Philosophers have arrived! ‘Life is a hobby’ - joking!
Any type of media will fail. The key is to have backup, not overthinking about the mechanism of the media itself.
As for your decision of hard-drives and optical media, ten years for now, do you still have the equipment needed for that optical media of yours, or the connector of that hard-drive? I have a ton of DVD media that I have to throw away because I nor any of my family even have a DVD player anymore. Data connectors are evolving, from PATA, SATA, USB-A, USB-C. By the time you actually need the data, do you still have the equipment to read the data from?
What's the point of archival grade optical media when you don't have the equipment to read it from?
IMO the best archival method is to just use AWS glacier. Let Amazon figure out the hardware part.
We are not saying use archival grade optical. We are saying don't think that an SD card can be relied on as if it were an archival grade media.
I use Glacier to backup my NAS devices. A great solution indeed.
Note the OP’s statement that I quoted, where the OP did suggest archival grade hard-drive or optical media.
And I don’t think there are people who use SD cards as long term archival storage. Maybe lay person who never deletes the pictures on the SD card inside his/her digital camera, but that same person won’t even know the concept of archiving to begin with.
This is true of every digital media.
Is there any evidence to suggest that SD cards are any worse than other digital media?
I store near 1TB on my cloud (Onedrive). 35GB is nothing.
However, cloud storage should not be used as a Backup due to a number of reasons.
What good is a backup if copies of your corrupted files are immediately overwritten to it?
Which is why I prefer a USB cable over a card reader. My card can store more than 9999 photos at 10MP on it.My photography/videography workflow is as follows:
- Shoot to SD cards
- Copy files to a computer
- Verify the files
- Backup the files to a NAS and other drives
- Format the cards in the camera to get them ready for the next shoot
So the concept of long term storage on SD cards is foreign to me! This is quite a fascinating thread!
I've heard that you're not supposed to shoot more pictures to a card after you mount it on a computer. The computer might write invisible/junk files to the card and it might confuse the camera. That's why it's always recommended that you format the cards in the camera before your next shoot.
The OP clearly hasn't had any problems reshooting cards. But that's just not a game I'm willing to play.
I wasn’t arguing they are worse than anything else, just that they’ll fail so shouldn’t be used for long term storage. But they are typically rated for 10k write cycles are or physically fragile, so I wouldn‘t trust them to be robust at all.
I missed this earlier..... Sorry!
IMHO it's not the gear that makes a photographer, it is the person who is using the tool, whether it be an iPhone or other cell phone camera or a 4x5 field camera, a 35mm film camera or a medium format film camera with a digital back or a DSLR, digital medium format or mirrorless camera, a P&S camera or a compact / bridge camera with a 1" sensor. I have seen some spectacular images shot with an iPhone and I've seen some lousy photos shot with top-of-the-line DSLRs, mirrorless or film cameras.
Yes, I would casually dismiss your friend the "mommy-with-a-camera" who like her cohorts is a far from uncommon sight at many children's sporting events, happily firing away with her "real" camera set in Auto/jpg -- I would consider her not a photographer, but rather simply a snap-shooter. That's nice that she enjoys it, though, and that it makes her happy, and definitely she is preserving memories for herself, her kids and their friends, even if the photos aren't that great. One would think, though, that she'd want to learn and grow in this pursuit, develop some skills.... After all, didn't most of us start out that way, too, snapping shots and then one day realizing we wanted to learn more and do more with a camera?
Yes, skill and passion ARE two different things. I'm passionate about other things as well as photography but my skills in some of those things are nil, and really only so-so in photography. A favorite pastime doesn't necessarily require passion, but it does require some level of interest, obviously, or someone would not spend time (and often money) on it. It just seems logical that one would want to develop skills in it when possible. That said, listening to music is a hobby for some people, and attending concerts, theatrical productions or the ballet could be considered so as well, whereas the listener or attendee may have absolutely no skills in music, dance or acting and be unable to acquire those skills.
As a retired librarian, I don't consider reading to be "a hobby" because I absolutely have never thought of it in quite that way -- just didn't occur to me. Reading is inherent to my very being, and pretty much as natural as breathing -- I just do it.
Exactly. I live in a touristy area and that's all the proof I need for this statement.
I used to be one of those poople. Then I learned to frame a shot.
My bad.
Your second paragraph, hold that thought and keep reading…. But put your drink down first in case you drop it
I like the Ansel Adams quote - “The most important part of a camera is the 6 inches behind it” - or something to that effect.
Actually, the cable option you prefer effectively uses the camera itself AS A card reader. So same issues apply.
But it’s still doing the same thing as a card reader regardless whether or not it shows as a drive. Data is still being read/written
I’ve learned a lot in this thread but am Quoting you because you mentioned Palm OS to webOS. Those were the good days.
I also have a stack of Zip Disk with data written back when I ran a Packard Bell 486 and I just recently figured out the password to get in them. Glad I picked up a USB Zip Drive as my original had a serial port
Data still there but I thought the pics had degraded till I realized that’s how bad the hardware was back then
Last but not least your redundant back-ups will not save your data if you are keeping them all in the same location
Not quite photos, but when I was working on my ill-fated PhD(that ended up being a masters) I did get extra paranoid about data. Over 5 years of full time research you accumulate a lot of it.
I'd periodically burn stuff to archival gold CDs and stick them in my safe deposit box. Actually, come to think of it, they're probably still there.
BTW, I also used CDs specifically and not DVDs for data security. CDs can remain readable with a surprising amount of physical damage, while DVDs are quite a bit more delicate. Also, having it spread over multiple disks at least in my mind minimized my risk in the case of the failure of a single piece of media.
The copies on my laptop would have been great unless my laptop was stolen, and the computers where I acquired the data would have been great other than something like a lab fire or explosion. I considered an off-site, archival grade backup that I never handled a safe option.
It shows up just like the iPhone does. You may not see it on the desktop like a hard drive or CD would, but it you look at the left side of the Finder's window, you will see a list of the devices connected to your Mac. Just "click" on the Finder icon on the dock, and look at the devices shown below "Locations".
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