COJuniper Loc: Central Oregon

Does the quality of the memory card deteriorate with the constant erasing of photos? (Take 10 earse them, then 10 more where those 10 where, etc.) will that "spot" on the memory card lose its quality and thus the final out come of the pictures down loaded?

jdtx Loc: SA, Tx.

I was told not to erase, that it will eventually damage the card, was told to format after you have all your images transfer over and duplicated somewhere..good luck

KathyinNH Loc: Kingston, NH

Does anyone know what the life expectancy is of an SD card?

Chris

I haven't had trouble with life expectancy but I have had one corrupted so it only holds a third of what its suppose to

Kathyr

I have never had a problem with my two SD memory cards (one is PNY, the other is a Kingston. I have had them for 5 years. I use "Format" instead of just erasing...after I have downloaded them to my computer.

Cornishpete Loc: Illinois

It could be of interest to anyone with a similar problem to yours Chris if you would save any images off the card and then reformat it in the camera (not on your computer) and then let us know whether the full capacity has been restored. Thanks

yvettegr

Memory cards are not hard drives so they don't deteriorate in the same way. SD Cards use Flash memory which is electronic memory. They don't wear out. There are no moving parts. However things like the leads where you plug it in, or being hit might jostle the insides, might cause problems. Never touch the leads (the part that pushes into your camera or reader) with your fingers. The oils from your skin will corrode the leads (unless you have gold-plated leads).

However, you do occasionally have to reformat the card or you'll lose space. This happens because a lot of people just delete photos but never reformat their entire card. Those deleted photos are still there, just haven't been deleted from the internal directory. That's why if you accidentally delete a photo you can recover it as long as you haven't taken any additional photos. Remember that if the police ever ask you to delete a video or photo. Don't use that card again till you can get to your computer and download a recovery program. If you haven't reformatted the card and merely deleted something you have almost a 100% chance of recovering the files. This does diminish somewhat if you've never reformatted your card, only deleted individual photographs.

Reformatting rewrites the database so the images are no longer there.

After I've uploaded photos to my computer and a copy to cloud storage I then reformat the SDcard to keep it working properly.

And don't store an SD card with images for long periods of time and expect the images to be okay. It is electronic storage. There's a little rechargeable battery in your SDcard. If you don't use it for awhile the charge goes away and your electronic storage goes away. This is also true of USB drives. They are not meant to store data and be put away for six months and not be used.

Chris

I tried that and nothing worked. I even brought it to a camera store and got the reply of ""It's rare but it happens"" I was lucky that I didn't loose any pictures it just wouldn't accept anymore as if the card was full

KathyinNH Loc: Kingston, NH

WOW!!! Thanks guys, that's a lot of good information, a lot that I didn't know about.

JimKing Loc: Salisbury, Maryland USA

Most of what I read says that memory cards DO wear out. If you take 10 photos and either erase or format the card the next 10 photos will be placed in positions 11 to 20 the software does this to even out the wear on the cards. Most people recommend formatting not erasing. This is to prevent data errors, not hardware problems as I understand it.

kennykodak Loc: Cincinnati

i'm told professionally to expect a service life of two years for critical assignments and then use them for lesser jobs. i agree with the comment above, reformat the cards in the camera instead of erasing the contents on the computer.

a1l2i3c4

what is meant by format and reformat the card. I am soo new at this!!!

Cornishpete Loc: Illinois

You don't tell us which camera you have but for the digital ones I have owned I would go to the menu on the camera LCD and when you search through that you should find "Format" or perhaps "reformat'. Just press ''set' or whatever your camera owners manual says and within seconds your card has been reformatted. If for some reason you don't have the owners manual just Google with something like this (depending on which make and model you have) 'Canon 50D owners manual' and you will find a PDF that will give you all you need to know about yours.

kennykodak Loc: Cincinnati

after downloading the card on to a computer's hard drive, backing it up on a dvd and checking it works, re-insert the card back into the camera and choose format. i usually repeat the format process three times.

JimKing Loc: Salisbury, Maryland USA

I can't think of any reason to repeat the process 3 times. It's probably not significant but it could add a little wear to the card.