Card failure story?

[sanj]

There is so much discussion currently on 6d2 having just one card slot, prompting me to ask:

Do you have any card failure report?

My story: I have never ever had a card fail on me.

You?

 

[Ryananthony]

I've never had a card fail. I have had one corrupt image, and it was so long ago I can't recall why. With that said, I've probably shot 300,000 photos total over the span of all my cameras. I'm sure there are people who may shoot close to that every year and the chance for card failure Is much higher.

I wonder if card failure is related to the age of the cards? I feel like cards would wear out over time and should be replaced every couple years regardless of a failure or not. Opinions?

 

[NorbR]

Nope, never had a card failure. Knock on wood

In fact I've had more camera failures than card failures. So instead of a camera with two card slots, maybe what I should get is a card slot with two cameras?

 

[chrysoberyl]

I have never had a card fail, but I've never bought a cheap card to use in my cameras. I very much hope that those who complain whine so much about the 6D II not having dual card slots will answer your question and specify the brand of card that failed.

John

 

[tomscott]

Ive shot around 8tbs of images in the last 3 years and have around 16tbs since 2010.

Never had a card corrupt on me.

The only issue I have had was with SD, the lock switch became faulty and the slightest movement would lock it meaning it wasn't readable by the camera. Pretty much every time it went into the camera the lock mechanism would move and lock the same trying to get it into a card reader.

Thankfully, for some reason the SD slot must be slightly different in the 5DMKIII to the 7DMKII and 70D as it read fine from that camera.

I am not a fan of SD cards they are flimsy especially in frequent usage if your one of those that has huge cads and writes until its full then offloads it may not be a big deal, or if you offload using the camera itself.

If my camera was SD only I would probably buy new cards more frequently.

I like to shoot with cards to reach around 1000 images so that's 32gb with the 5DMKII and fill and offload so if I loose a card or it corrupts its not the end of the world. On top of that I shoot to both CF and SD to ensure a redundant backup.

In terms of CF never ever had a problem with them at all and very glad Canon continues to use them in the higher end bodies.

 

[Don Haines]

I have had two card failures. One was an older Sandisk and the other one was so long ago that I am unsure, but it might have been a Kingston.

I also dropped a camera 100+ feet onto a cement pad..... the camera dis-assembled itself and the card survived...

I also intend to get a 6D2 and the single card slot does not bother me.....

 

[LDS]

Do you have any card failure report?

Cards may fail. With wear, that chance will increase, and other factors will play as well (card quality, production batches, age, storage, etc. etc.)

It may never happen to you, or it may happen several times. There are good reason to replace them after a while (at least for important jobs), testing them before use, use more smaller cards than fewer larger ones (when there's enough time to replace the card), etc. etc.

Then it's up to to assess what risks you can accept, and how to manage them - knowing that some solutions, like a dual card camera, will be more expensive - it looks everybody likes money, in this world. You just need to assess what will cost more to you, a dual card camera, or lost jobs/customers.

 

[leadin2]

No card failures in camera for me so far, maybe I didn't shoot enough. I believe wear and tear plays a part too. Is there probably a shooting pattern that we can observe, for example, shooting with plenty of high burst shots, frequent plug in and out your memory cards.

 

[einstein72586]

I have had a card failure before, luckily my camera has dual slots so I was saved. I was using a Lexar memory card( my understanding is this is not a low end brand, someone correct me if it is). Raw images were going to the Lexar and jpeg was going to the other card, preview was setup to read from the other card containing the jpegs. Card had been used multiple times before, formatting in between uses, and was less then a year old. Got home from a 2 week vacation and found that all the raw images on this card were completely corrupt and could not be saved. I formatted the card again, but the same thing repeated, all images were corrupted. Long story short, best idea is to have two card slots. I am not a professional, just a hobbyist, but even with that the idea of losing two weeks of photos from a overseas trip is scary. All future dslr purchases will require dual slots for me. I understand that card failures might be a rare thing, but rare doesn't mean none existent. So the true question is, is it worth having one card slot and having the "possibility" of losing all your photos. If your being paid, or its a once in a life time trip, I would "think" you would want to play it safe and have two.

P.S. This is just my personal opinion based on my personal experiences. So don't go feeling the need to trash my post. I will admit that I was very interested in getting the 6d mark II, but if does in fact have only one card slot then based on my past experience I would have to say no to buying it even though I like the other specs the camera does have.

 

[old-pr-pix]

Only one failure here out of dozens and dozens of cards. Sandisk Ultra 16 GB SD card - a fairly new card, it locked up in camera after proper format and 15 shots. Failed to store #16. Replaced card in camera and went on shooting the event. Never could recover the first 15 shots. Just glad failure wasn't after a lot more shots. Sandisk would replace the card but too many hoops to jump thru for a 16 GB card. After that I decided all future body acquisitions should be dual card.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Got home from a 2 week vacation and found that all the raw images on this card were completely corrupt and could not be saved. ... If your being paid, or its a once in a life time trip, I would "think" you would want to play it safe and have two.

The fact that you didn't discover that your card had failed until you returned home suggests that you didn't check the RAW images, or back them up, during the trip. Yes, cards can fail - but it's far, far more likely that you'll either lose your camera or have it stolen on that 'once in a life time trip', and in that case, the number of card slots is irrelevant.

To truly play it safe, back up your images at least nightly while traveling (or bring enough cards to use a new one each day).

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Certainly, I've had card failures, usually, its just some memory cells that have failed and can be mapped out, but one card failed and took the camera with it. Then it destroyed a 2nd DSLR before it was figured out.

Having a 2nd card may be critical, or for casual photos that can be repeated in case of failure, its not a big deal. If you are on a once in a lifetime trip, losing images may mean a lot more than the price of a upgraded camera to you, you can also take a backup camera and use it, thats even more reliable than dual cards, since cameras fail as well.

 

[[email protected]]

I am terrible in how I treat my cards. I have four or five cards that have gone through the wash (and dryer) at least one time, in one case three times.

This is true for both SD and Compact Flash cards. None have failed once I got them up and going.

I did have a Lexar card that was dead on arrival, and the company sent me a new one (after a month). I had a Sony card also dead on arrival, but they declined to honor their guarantee. Never got back to me after calls, emails and letter. Makes me wonder how their "pro" service that they launched with the A9 is going to do. Perhaps it'll lead to a better model for them, but as of now I'm skeptical of them.

I buy Komputer Bay compact flash cards now because they're generally as fast as the Lexar/SanDisk ones, significantly cheaper, and apparently as reliable. For SD cards, I buy very large size cards that happen to be on promotion at the time.

Most of my cameras have two slots, but I use one as overflow, rather than backup. That the 6D2 appears to have just one slot doesn't disappoint me but so much. I would have used the second slot for overflow in situations such as timelapse setups, where memory requirements are huge.

The requirement for a 2nd slot strikes me as one of those "pro hangups," like not wishing to have a vari-angle screen or not wanting a fast or wide lens to have IS.

The real risk of card corruption is centered on how the camera writes to the card, rather than a hardware issue with the card. As such, a wedding pro should be swapping cards out with some frequency, protecting the images from the camera. If a pro swaps a card out every hour, then a catastrophic failure might wipe 20 percent of the images. If a pro leaves two cards in the camera for an entire event, I'm not sure they're more protected.

 

[pdirestajr]

I've never had a card fail, across multiple brands too. I also format my card every time I want to clear it. Don't know if that helps at all, it's just what I have always done so it's become my standard routine.

 

[Luds34]

To truly play it safe, back up your images at least nightly while traveling (or bring enough cards to use a new one each day).

I tend to agree. This year I already took some big trips, definitely some once in a life time as even if/when I go back, it will be a different trip. Just got back from France recently, did Northern California two months ago, and before that a trip to Asia (Hong Kong, Cambodia, Thailand).

I would be lying if I were not paranoid about losing the photos, especially from theft on all of those trips. I typically don't buy anything bigger then 32 gig cards to your very point that I don't ever want/need too many photos on a single card. So while I didn't swap out cards every night, I did every 2 or 3 days. Of course then my fear was also losing the SD cards.

General Question, without bringing a laptop on a trip/vacation, is their any easy way to back the photos off the SD card and on to some other portable storage? Because my general rule on a vacation is to enjoy the vacation, leaving work, and the internet behind.

 

[Luds34]

Forgot to add (as another data point) I have never had a card fail on my. However, I only shoot ~10k photos a year. And like others, I typically stick to quality brands (SanDisk). Although I do have a couple Lexar cards (professional series) I picked up on a deal a year or so ago that have served me well thus far.

 

[neuroanatomist]

General Question, without bringing a laptop on a trip/vacation, is their any easy way to back the photos off the SD card and on to some other portable storage? Because my general rule on a vacation is to enjoy the vacation, leaving work, and the internet behind.

Not cheap, but you could consider something like the Sanho HyperDrive, up to 2 TB direct backup for SD and CF cards. You can reduce the cost by buying just the case and putting in an HDD yourself.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Luds.
I don't know about devices to back up cards without a computer, but how about take your personal (not work) laptop, select flight mode and some self restraint so that you leave work and the internet behind!
Personally, I have found the internet to be useful on holiday for finding places to go or things to see when the weather or other external influences require a change of plan. YMMV.

To answer the on topic question, I have had both a card failure and a camera failure, important (to me) journeys and events, I always have a spare camera and cards.
When my CF card failed it was after downloading the last lot of shots, quick format in the card reader (like hundreds of times before) put it in the camera and got a card needs formatting (paraphrasing) request, card cannot be formatted error so no shots lost, my 40D quit with err99, no shots lost unless you take in to account the slower fps, smaller buffer of the 300D that stepped up to the plate!

Cheers, Graham.

General Question, without bringing a laptop on a trip/vacation, is their any easy way to back the photos off the SD card and on to some other portable storage? Because my general rule on a vacation is to enjoy the vacation, leaving work, and the internet behind.
[/quote]

 

[Luds34]

General Question, without bringing a laptop on a trip/vacation, is their any easy way to back the photos off the SD card and on to some other portable storage? Because my general rule on a vacation is to enjoy the vacation, leaving work, and the internet behind.

Not cheap, but you could consider something like the Sanho HyperDrive, up to 2 TB direct backup for SD and CF cards. You can reduce the cost by buying just the case and putting in an HDD yourself.

Thanks neuro. That does seem to fit the bill. You are correct as well that it is a bit pricey except for the supply your own hard drive option, is "reasonable" at $250. Of course if the only use case is the occasional trip/travel then it is a bit hard to justify. More junk for me to maintain, charge, etc.

 

[Luds34]

Hi Luds.
I don't know about devices to back up cards without a computer, but how about take your personal (not work) laptop, select flight mode and some self restraint so that you leave work and the internet behind!
Personally, I have found the internet to be useful on holiday for finding places to go or things to see when the weather or other external influences require a change of plan. YMMV.

Haha, yes of course. Agreed, I would never bring my work laptop with. My personal laptop would probably fit the bill just fine. It's an old, refurbished 13" Dell Latitude I picked up a few years ago and swapped in an SSD all said for 400 bucks. I just have linux on there and use it mostly for hitting the web. Would be more then fine for backing up images, and starts to make a lot of sense after looking at the cost of what neuro suggested.

Agreed, internet is useful for traveling. Smart phones are very useful for traveling! Just to navigate foreign cities, using a new subway system, train schedules, car rental for day, etc. I usually have a tablet along (for entertainment on flights) that is useful for looking stuff up before heading out from where I'm staying as well.

I agree on a little bit of self discipline. Thankfully not too much self discipline is required when you are traveling through new and exciting cities and towns.