Card failure story?

Jan 29, 2011
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Luds34 said:
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.

Yes WD My Passport Wireless Pro. Up to 4TB of portable battery powered goodness, built in SD card reader and 802.11ac wireless included along with the free app for integrated iOS/ Android workflow in the field. It also has a USB 2 port for connecting cameras or card readers that are not SD, and a USB 3 for connecting it to a computer.

It will backup SD cards and connected media automatically without a computer or device though you can check all your images and video are safe;y on it from any smart phone or tablet.
 
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pwp

Oct 25, 2010
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CF and SD cards have become very stable, and presumably cFast cards are pretty rock solid as well. Although they're probably less likely to fail than a computer HDD (both spinning disk and SSD) there's always a possibility. I've had a few cards fail on me over time, most recently a 64Gb Lexar x1066 CF. It was an important job, and the SD card in the second slot of my 5DIV saved my bacon.

For any high stakes commissioned work, I simply wouldn't be without dual cards. Ever. You're paid a lot of money to deliver the goods and never ever f***-up.

Enthusiast and amateur photography is no less valuable, the price of lost images can be a sickening disappointment and creatively crushing.

Use of dual cards is such cheap and easy insurance.

-pw
 
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Jan 29, 2011
10,675
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pwp said:
For any high stakes commissioned work, I simply wouldn't be without dual cards. Ever. You're paid a lot of money to deliver the goods and never ever f***-up.

So you don't shoot multi $100,000's campaigns on location with anything but the latest Hasselblad? Leibovitz et al have been doing MF digital location work for the highest end clients for years with one card slot.
 
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Jul 28, 2015
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neuroanatomist said:
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.

The UDMA3 does not seem to be available any more :-\
I have recently bought an OTG cable for my tablet and apparently you can use it to download images from the tablet to an external hard drive.


We do have an old 10" netbook. Since the rise of the tablet, cheap small netbooks are hard to get but I find it ideal for in-travel backups.
 
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LDS

Sep 14, 2012
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privatebydesign said:
So you don't shoot multi $100,000's campaigns on location with anything but the latest Hasselblad? Leibovitz et al have been doing MF digital location work for the highest end clients for years with one card slot.

It may depend on your workflow. I guess many high-end works, especially commercial ones, are done with the camera tethered (wired or wireless), or the cards are downloaded quickly and inspected.

If the camera has a single slot but has wi-fi, when working within a limited are, wi-fi can be configured to transfer a copy to a PC. It may be a more complex setup, though.
 
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May 15, 2014
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privatebydesign said:
Luds34 said:
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.

Yes WD My Passport Wireless Pro. Up to 4TB of portable battery powered goodness, built in SD card reader and 802.11ac wireless included along with the free app for integrated iOS/ Android workflow in the field. It also has a USB 2 port for connecting cameras or card readers that are not SD, and a USB 3 for connecting it to a computer.

It will backup SD cards and connected media automatically without a computer or device though you can check all your images and video are safe;y on it from any smart phone or tablet.

Thanks, this was more what I was looking for. Even the wifi and phone apps is probably overkill. I just wanted something simple enough as to basically be a portable HD that I can just pop a card into and hit a button to copy/merge to disk.
 
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mnclayshooter

I love shooting - clay pigeons and photos!
Oct 28, 2013
314
0
Minnesota, USA
I had a microSD fail in a smartphone - it would regularly de-mount from the phone's OS and cause corruption - I don't believe it was the card's electronics necessarily though, The mechanism that retained the card seemed to let go of it and allow it to get loose in the phone... thus making electrical contacts probably a little wonky. The new card fit very snugly and never had the same issue. It was a Sandisk product (I believe the gray/red variety - whatever "model" they call that), but it was apparently a known issue with that card (or at least there were a lot of complaints about it). For the very small dollars involved (I believe less than $15, I just threw it away and got a new one rather than dealing with the return/rebate whatever they offered and not having a card in the interim. That's the only failure out of at least 4 dozen cards I have for various devices.

Incidentally, the small Xfinity X1 cable box for your secondary rooms (other than where the main DVR unit is) have SD's in them for buffering/storage. They are nearly constantly reading-writing back and forth, I've never had any indication that there's an issue with failure, and to my knowledge, they aren't being re-formatted etc, just deleted and over-written on a nearly constant basis while the TV is on, and potentially even when it is off when it is buffering your last watched channel.

This is the WD device mentioned elsewhere. Looks like a nearly ideal solution for those using phones/tablets/traveling with cameras with SD's. I'll be looking into it, for certain. For $150, 1TB, $220 4TB. Seems like a win-win especially for work use in backing up my phone/tablet.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1322058-REG/wd_wdbsmt0040bbk_nesn_4tb_my_passport_wireless.html
 
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I use 5D3 & 4, hence have dual cards. I always shoot RAW + jpg, copying both to both cards. I shoot a lot, daily, in complex circumstances. I have had only one fail: a Lexar 633x 64G SD became corrupt -- don't know why or how. I lost a few images. Tried everything --reformatted card, different cameras, readers, etc. Gave up. Lexar offered to replace card.
I shoot difficult circumstances where threat is possible, so I shoot for a while, then replace cards with empty cards, and stash partly-filled cards where they won't be found except by very invasive search. If I'm really jacked up I give the CD card to the threat, and snivel; they usually don't know there's a SD card also. I offload daily to laptop, and have at least 2, usually 3 hard drives--one for me, one to colleague, one for hotel room. High capacity thumb drives (256G) around neck. Compulsive, but it's worked so far.
 
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Never had a card fail...... yet

For me it's not just about corrupted cards.. but also what if I lose or damage a card. I've lost a load of irriplacable family images when my backup reigeme didn't catch a failed disk. So now I'm a LOT more wary generally. For me I want a backup ASAP after images are taken.. right now that means taking the card out of the camera and giving it to my laptop to make a copy, that's my "first base" (two coppies, two locations.. i.e. not both in the same box on the same power supply) With 2 cards in the camera, I can pull one, put it in my bag/pocket and I'm at first base, so I can do that with no kit what so ever.

A two card 6D2 would simplify my life no end.
 
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Sporgon

5% of gear used 95% of the time
CR Pro
Nov 11, 2012
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Never had a card failure, which is why I want a camera with three card slots. After reading some of the comments here it's becoming clear to me that given the law of averages I'm heading for a monumental failure, and this could be two cards failing at the same time, which is why I want three.
 
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Don Haines

Beware of cats with laser eyes!
Jun 4, 2012
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Sporgon said:
Never had a card failure, which is why I want a camera with three card slots. After reading some of the comments here it's becoming clear to me that given the law of averages I'm heading for a monumental failure, and this could be two cards failing at the same time, which is why I want three.

I would also suggest backing up over WiFi as you go as an additional way to stay safe......
 
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Don Haines said:
Sporgon said:
Never had a card failure, which is why I want a camera with three card slots. After reading some of the comments here it's becoming clear to me that given the law of averages I'm heading for a monumental failure, and this could be two cards failing at the same time, which is why I want three.

I would also suggest backing up over WiFi as you go as an additional way to stay safe......

You're wifi could fail too. Instead you should probably always shoot tethered to a computer backing up to a Raid6 array, and instantly backing up to two different locations on the cloud. Two 350 foot cables and a couple jerkstoppers and you're all set for weddings.
 
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To the best of my recollection I've had zero SD card failures and one CF card failure. The CF card was a cheap Transcend one (I knew better). Though I can't remember the exact problem, I think it was not recording images and showed an error. Could've been a camera issue mind you. That was a while ago. Smooth sailing ever since with my Sandisk cards.

Slightly unrelated but once I discovered a fake CF card. Not a fan of CF tbh, they're expensive, require card readers and not useful for much else. Can't even give them away.
 
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pwp

Oct 25, 2010
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bereninga said:
Out of 10+ years, I've only had one SD card that occasionally generated corrupted images. It was a Lexar card, which I'll never buy again. I've used various brands otherwise. SanDisk has been the fastest for me.

Make sure to test out and use your card frequently before going out. Don't be shy to replace very old ones.

You're brave continuing to use a suspect card. Suspect cards here are instantly bent with pliers to prevent further use and sent to landfill. Is it really worth the risk?

-pw
 
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pwp

Oct 25, 2010
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privatebydesign said:
pwp said:
For any high stakes commissioned work, I simply wouldn't be without dual cards. Ever. You're paid a lot of money to deliver the goods and never ever f***-up.

So you don't shoot multi $100,000's campaigns on location with anything but the latest Hasselblad? Leibovitz et al have been doing MF digital location work for the highest end clients for years with one card slot.

Ha ha! That's right....no Hasselblad. And no $100k campaigns either. :) My last MF camera was a film kit, Mamiya RZ67, sold in 2002. I recently looked at a drum scanned 6x7 Velvia file and was stunned how bad it was compared to Canon files. Even my long retired 5D Classic and 1Ds files look better.

You can be sure that everyone shooting big budget campaigns will have refined redundancy strategies in place regardless of how many card slots their cameras have. Leibovitz included. It's often not convenient to shoot tethered. WiFi is too slow for most shoots as a meaningful backup. Some shooters will use a number of smaller capacity cards and swap them out often and have them verified by an assistant.

Dual slots was a very useful innovation. Period.

-pw
 
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I had a card fail on a trip to Costa Rica, lost an entire day of the trip (I switched cards each day and we had no electricity to backups in the cabins we stayed at). Even with forensic tools (I worked in computer and physics forensics at the time) the card was not recoverable (Kingston, which I have never bought since). My next camera had 2 card slots and I have always done jpg on the second ever since. Also helps when I forget to put a card back and wander out the door.

When you mostly do nature photography, you can't really go back and get the same shot again.

On a side note, I still have to get back to Costa Rica to get the toucan and scarlet macaw shots that I lost.
 
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