BlueMorel Loc: Southwest Michigan

Maybe this is wrong thinking, but I'd rather wear out an SD card than the cord plugin port on my camera. Guess it's from my past experience of cord failure on old electronics.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

Don't forget when thinking about using an adapter from a uSD to a standard SD card that a contact has TWO parts. Even though you could biff the adapter card if its contacts wear out that is only half the problem. There is still the contacts in the camera. I don't know which part of a camera would be the dearest bit to replace - the card contacts or the USB socket. The only way to be sure would be to leave a very short USB cable permanently attached to the camera and this might be somewhat annoying. Wireless would be the way to go but most current implementations are quite slow or none existent.

johnst1001a Loc: West Chester, Ohio

Never had a memory card fail, have used many over the years, and have about 200,000 shots so far. I have had the card reader fail, using CF.

aphelps Loc: Central Ohio

I disagree. If an sd card's cotacts wear out (never happened to me) the cost to replace is minimal. BUT constantly inserting and removing the cable WILL eventually loosen the contacts in the camera socket. This will be a significant cost to repair. Better to remove the card for file transfer.

jkeuvelaar

Moving on from the issues at hand, I have a Nikon D750. Not my first camera mind you. Always have used SanDisk SD cards. This camera uses the smaller in physical size disc. I've had several discs go bad in less than a year of use. Fortunately it informed me of this before I began shooting so no lost pic's so far. Has anyone else had similar experiences. SanDisk has always been reliable.

KarenKaptures Loc: New Jersey

I wish there was a “like” button 😂😂

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

I have used EyeFi SD for several years and have never needed to remove them from the camera, everything is done wirelessly so no cables are needed, no damaged pins on the card or in the camera or on the PC.

Vlemasters

Someone above mention using WiFi cards. Never tried that but my canon 77d had built in WiFi. Problem with that is it doesn’t transfer in rawformat. Am I doing something wrong? Camera is set to raw only but transferred files will not open in raw, just jpeg. When I use a cable all is right with the world.

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

The card is a very simple machine. It only has 4 parts - the plastic top, the plastic bottom, the IC with molded in contacts and the little plastic switch that tells it to be writable, or not. One 64mb I have has one more part - the superglue I put it back together with. (still works fine)
Unless you zap it with electrical current or smash it with a frozen ham, you won't hurt it.

NikonF5guy

I have personally had two SD cards fail, once was when I was in the field doing commercial insurance inspections after a two hour commute to a location, and had already photographed my first location. Card was a SanDisk and had not been either mishandled or abused in its cosseted life, and I had always used the cable to download my photos. It failed to write suddenly upon arrival to my second location.

The other tIme was with a Lexar, and when it was inserted into my laptop, it was no longer able to be read. Case of card was intact, as was it's switch. Lost a bunch of photos on that card too,

vbhargava Loc: San Diego

Most likely reason for SD card failure is due to static discharge that occurs when you touch the contacts while you are wearing clothing that accumulate charge. It may withstand once or twice but will eventually fail. To avoid this type of destruction try to avoid removing SD cards when it is too dry (low humidity) as in winters. Good luck!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Definitely, even a "small" zap would degrade them if it doesn't kill them.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

There are several problems with this argument.

First, it's simply untrue. Removing a memory card from a camera and inserting it into a card reader causes so little wear and tear on the card it's unlikely to ever cause any problems. You are far more likely to replace the card for other reasons sometime in the future, because it's not compatible with or large enough for use in a new camera you buy... or because the type of memory has become obsolete.

Next, to transfer images via the USB cable, the camera must remain powered up for the duration of the download. If it's accidentally interrupted in any way or if there's insufficient battery power that causes the camera to shut down mid-download, there is high likelihood that images on the card will be irretrievably corrupted.

Third, following that procedure basically means you can't ever change cards in the course of a day's shoot and that in turn forces you to buy a single, super large card and "put all your eggs in one basket", where they would all be lost should anything occur.

Fourth, it means wear and tear on the USB socket of the camera, instead of the card and its socket. In many cameras the USB socket is part of the main circuit board, which in the event of a failure would require extensive disassembly of the camera (higher labor costs) and the replacement of a major (more expensive) component. In contrast, the memory card slot in most cameras is a separately replaceable sub-assembly that's much more easily accessed, if it's replacement is ever necessary. So the cost of both labor and parts for a card socket on a camera will in most cases be considerably less than the cost of fixing a USB socket failure.



I don't see using Micro SD as preferable to standard SD, in any case. It's added, unnecessary complexity and mover connections to potentially fail or somehow slow the data flow. Plus Micro SD cards and their adapters are considerably more fragile, and those tiny cards are much more easily misplaced. Heck, I'm not a fan of even standard size SD cards because of their small size. I prefer larger Compact Flash cards, which are easier to handle. (Except the pins and sockets used for CF connectivity are a lot more easily damaged by mishandling, than the "slider type" contacts on SD cards.)

I've been shooting digitally for 20+ years (almost exclusively for around 15 yrs). The memory cards of the earliest digital cameras I used are now obsolete and their card readers are incompatible with modern computer operating systems. I've also ended up upgrading memory cards periodically, usually along with camera upgrades that meant larger files and required bigger/faster memory cards.

I've used more than 100 different memory cards over the years... currently have about 20 that go with me on every shoot (and another 20 or so smaller, older "backups", just in case they're needed). I often fill, swap out and later download 6 or 8 or ten memory cards in a day's shoot. (250 to 500 RAW files per card... less if I shoot RAW + JPEG.... I never shoot JPEG only.) I bet some of my oldest memory cards have been swapped in and out of cameras a hundred or more times.

Knock on wood, in all that time and with all those cards, card swaps, downloads and a few million images to date... I have NEVER had a card wear out or get damaged in use and have NEVER damaged the socket of a camera or a card reader (it takes mere seconds to swap cards and format the new one in-camera).

I have had exactly two card failures... both of which occurred when the cards were brand new. One card worked for the very first outing, but "locked up" and became inaccessible after a portion of the images were downloaded. The other card wouldn't even format initially, was "dead on arrival" right out of the package (both were well known, brand name cards and not "fakes", bought from highly reputable sources).

I also had images get corrupted during download once... But that was my own fault due to changes in connectivity I'd made. I had added a USB hub in order to attach more stuff to a computer with limited ports.... and started seeing some images corrupted during download (appeared fine in-camera). As soon as I switched the card reader back to directly connected to the computer (instead of via the USB hub), problem solved. I now use a computer with built-in memory card readers (faster connectivity direct to the motherboard... though the latest USB3 are probably just as fast).

So, based upon my experience...

Joe B's argument to use the USB cable instead of removing the card from the camera and using a card reader is way off base for a number of reasons.

With reasonable care, cards and card slots are a lot more durable than many folks think.

And, no, in my opinion Micro-SD cards w/adapter are not a good substitute for standard sized SD. They are usable, if necessary, but not an "improvement" in many ways. Just the opposite, in fact.

vbhargava Loc: San Diego

I am a PhD in electrical engineering and I can say with confidence that the explanation I gave is most likely cause for SD card failures. My daughter was a student at MIT in electrical engineering and in first two years she blew two SD cards in winter months after that (during winter months) when she needed to change or remove cards she would go to the bathroom, turn on the shower to increase the humidity and then safely take the card out. Since then she has not had any problems with SD cards in the last 14 years! You can also discharge the static build up by grounding yourself by touching the faucet before removing the SD card.

gwilliams6

Love this post. Cheers