The truth about sd cards?

[SHaller]

I know everyone has had a bad experiences with a certain brand of card and now swears by another brand, but I am having trouble finding any independent research on card reliability and speeds. Also, does anyone have any tips on protecting your card from failing? I heard something about designating a specific card to only one camera and not using that card in any other camera. Don't know how true that is.

 

[KmH]

Arthur C. Clarke made the statement - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

And so it is with flash memory cards.

It is OK to swap SD cards between cameras, but the card has to be formatted in the camera it will be used in before it has image data written to the card.

That is so the File Allocation Table (FAT) is formatted for the way that camera allocates the cards memory locations.

Card speed is more about upload to the computer speed than it is about how fast the camera can write image data to the card. The camera's buffer is usually the limiting factor, not card speed.

For more information: Rob Galbraith DPI: CF/SD Performance Database

 

[thomas30]

Yes, it is true. if you use the same card in different camera and card reader then there is more probability to be corrupted.

The few points which we should avoid to avoid corruption of card:

1. Format your card on frequent basis
2. Do not use the same card on different device
3. do not use it when the battery is too low
4. Do not interrupt while a file is being written or read from it.

in spite of following all the safety tips, if it is corrupted then you can download a memory card recovery tool from net. The algorithms of these tool are written in way that it can recover photos, audios and videos from corrupted as well as formatted storage media.