Why are SD cards too fragile?

[AlaskaMoose]

Skills are learned, and some people learn faster than others. Regardless of being a hobby or anything else, one does learn a skill. Being an "enthusiast" or even a professional, as well as "whatever one wants to call it", all require a learning process that leads to a skill. So yes, a person can consider reading "a hobby." One who reads for a living can call it a profession

That said, a cellphone, pinhole, or any other type of camera is just a tool. As such it won't make you a photographer, nor an enthusiast, nor anything else.

 

[kenoh]

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

RS232 9 pin D connectors…. Using a toothpick to un-bend pins…. Good times…

Lol… pictures degraded…. That made me giggle.

 

[kenoh]

Card in camera does not show up as a drive on the desktop like old cameras did.

It is still accessed in the same way by the operating system. The difference is the way it is presented to you as the user.

 

[chengengaun]

Just wanted to say I did learn something new here - format the SD card after every offload. I usually just delete the photos after every offload.

 

[MacNut]

Just wanted to say I did learn something new here - format the SD card after every offload. I usually just delete the photos after every offload.

Sadly I need to learn to do this again. I seem to be dump and running without clearing the card enough.

 

[Clix Pix]

Never format a card in the computer!! Always format it only in the camera. Also, it is better not to delete a bunch of images from the card itself, as that can mess up things with the structure/configuration of the file system in the card. Once in a while, sure, when you know you accidentally hit the shutter button and took a photo of your shoes, that's fine to delete that image, but it's not good to delete a whole lot of images in-camera. Best to wait until you've got everything in the computer and then delete, which is also better since you can see the image much more clearly as well.

 

[bunnspecial]

Never format a card in the computer!! Always format it only in the camera. Also, it is better not to delete a bunch of images from the card itself, as that can mess up things with the structure/configuration of the file system in the card. Once in a while, sure, when you know you accidentally hit the shutter button and took a photo of your shoes, that's fine to delete that image, but it's not good to delete a whole lot of images in-camera. Best to wait until you've got everything in the computer and then delete, which is also better since you can see the image much more clearly as well.

To be fair, I do generally format in-computer, although a fresh card always gets an in-camera format.

Actually as I sit here now I'm getting ready to do a big card dump as I haven't done so in a while. Because I'm only doing a few cards, they'll go right back in the cameras and get formatted in the cameras where they will be used.

Part of the reason for doing my computer format, though, is so that I can pull out a card and know for sure it's "blank" and not something I inadvertently used and forgot about, although I'm diligent about face-up meaning blank and face-down meaning used in my wallet.

Shooting sheet film can teach you to be SUPER disciplined about stuff like this. The dark slide on film holders has one side of the top tab/handle painted or colored black, and the other side is either bare metal or colored white. For me, white/silver means unexposed and black means exposed. A mistake here can cost you big, as it's two lost images(that you likely spent 10-30 minutes each setting up) and a not insignificant amount of money.

 

[mackmgg]

Sadly I need to learn to do this again. I seem to be dump and running without clearing the card enough.

That's what I generally do, until the import gets too slow trying to find new photos. I really don't see the point in formatting the card just for the sake of formatting the card.

Even if you do hourly backups (like Time Machine) or continuous (like Dropbox) it's not instantaneously backed up the second you import into your computer. May as well at least keep it on the SD card until it's in your backups!

 

[Robotti]

RS232 9 pin D connectors…. Using a toothpick to un-bend pins…. Good times…

Lol… pictures degraded…. That made me giggle.

Hey, some of us still have to build 9 pin D connector cables FOR BRAND NEW EQUIPMENT! ?

 

[kenoh]

Hey, some of us still have to build 9 pin D connector cables FOR BRAND NEW EQUIPMENT! ?

Please accept my sincere condolences…. ? hopefully for some interesting embedded system or test equipment reasons though. I hope not to keep a 56k modem working…

 

[Robotti]

Please accept my sincere condolences…. ? hopefully for some interesting embedded system or test equipment reasons though. I hope not to keep a 56k modem working…

Broadcast lenses are still today connected to tracking and virtual systems mainly with a serial interface. Of course it's not always the D-connector, but still. Fun times!

 

[mtbdudex]

OK, so in response to the last paragraph, I work in IT I KNOW I am correct about data archival. You have limited experience with this memory format as a light consumer relative to others on here.

Speaking from experience, doing firmware upgrades to servers in data centres using an SD card was fun. You would typically get through about 80 servers before the card either snapped from being badly handled or the data started to fail when read. 80 servers sounds good but then you have 70,000 of them to get done, then you need a better solution.

One of the systems I worked on for a well known Telecom company used to have 14 DLT tape drives to back up the production systems every night. Capacity wise it needed 9. The other 6 were there because at least 2 would fail most nights. Funny enough, this company paid so much in hardware maintenance contracts that the hardware manufacturer employed an engineer to sit onsite at the customer just in case so when things broke he was already there to get them fixed. When you have 70,000 servers then something always breaks.

Archival storage mediums have a guaranteed storage life of 30 years+

The issue with SD cards is like the other posters said, it could be years, could be never but It may also be tomorrow when that card fails - ever pull out the card without ejecting it first? Bad idea. If it is still writing to memory you can corrupt data. If you have, you know how easy that is to do. This of course also applies to USB hard drives. If you kill the power before it has written the cache to the disk, it is gone

Best answer!!!

 

[sam_dean]

Many say I should not store data on a sd card long term. Well I do this but it’s no big deal if I lose the data since it’s backed up to my Mac and my Mac is also backed up to a USB hard drive. I say compared to the old floppy disk or Zip disk which I had many of at one time SD cards are a great storage medium.

I use the photos app and have two libraries. One for iPhone/iPad which can be accessed from my appleTV, and my Canon library which is for my canons.

I have had my 64GB card in my camcorder since 2018 and I have yet to have a problem. If this was my only backup I’d say the posters here we’re correct but since I have backups I can continue to store data on a sd card. Oh and I forgot. Back in the PALM OS days I used a sd card for data and never had a problem.

So it is cheap to buy and you end up buying more.