John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

As SD cards have no moving parts and are just a network of solid state micro-transistors in a micro-wiring harness, I would venture most failures derive from damage to the external contacts. Crooked, careless insertion handling might be the most common cause. Its a two-way street - consider the contacts in your camera, too.

rcarol

I did limited research on the reliability of SD cards and I was surprised at the numbers. Most distributors claim the MTBF of >3,000,000 hours. What that means is that on average there will be one failure every 3,000,000 hours. That probably explains why I've never had an SD card failure. I've always wondered about the obsession of having two cards in a camera for backup when in reality, the SD card is the most reliable component in the chain of possible camera failures. It is my firm belief that the principal cause of SD failure is mishandling. The contacts are exposed and it's very easy to grab the SD card by its contacts. This may result in static electricity being introduced to the card. Static electricity is the number one killer of electronic components. Furthermore, there are a limited number of actual chip manufacturers. Samsung is one of those and until recently, Micron in Idaho. Micron has gotten out of the chip business. The various names seen on SD cards are resellers that buy their chips from the chip manufacturer then have them packaged with their name on the SD card. Resellers such as SanDisk and others are not in the chip manufacturing business. They only package chips and it's not likely they actually do this themselves. They most likely go to a packaging house that packages for other resellers as well. I hope that I have not confused the UHH community.

AlohaBob Loc: Los Angeles, CA

I've heard there are a lot of Counterfit Sandisk cards and Amazon is a good place to get them.

Ron Dial Loc: Cuenca, Ecuador

There are two kinds of photographers...Those who have had cards go bad, and those who will have cards go bad. It is electronics, take your shot, go home download the images, and back them up on something, then start playing with it. Otherwise, you are on borrowed time.

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

I have both Sandisk and Lexar. Neither has failed. I don't know the status of Lexar now that they have been sold, but both brands had lifetime warranties when purchased.

JP Pixburgh Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

I had a plastic bracket that goes over the contacts of the SD Card break off inside my camera. Being careful when extracting it from the slot I could actually transfer the files to my computer then stick it back in the camera and it worked! Eventually I performed some surgery on the slot and got the bracket out. Camera works fine with any SD Card now. Personally, I think luck was on my side getting it out. Any repair center would have taken the camera apart to get it.

tenny52 Loc: San Francisco

I can't image one have to keep on swapping SD cards when viewing captures of previous years

marty wild Loc: England

Only the pro range has the 25 years warranty. I have had 3 replaced with no issues to save time you must register your card which requires an image of the original purchase documents.

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

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I as well do this procedure.

I make use of both SD and CF cards. I make Up-Loads to my computer and two (2) Back-Ups, especially when on locations for weeks at a time. I do carry my laptop and two portable H.D.'s. As well as a "Photo-Safe" H.D. = (This little handy item is cool. I put the cards into the slots on the side of the drive and press a button. The drive will build a file folder for each card inserted, and copy the image files to that folder. I really like this as I did have one of my portable H.D.'s crash.)

I just looked for the "Photo-Safe 500 Gig Card Reader Hard Drive" and did not see that it is available any longer. It was a really cool way to back up the images while on the traveling to locations. The one that I have still works great - and I got it from B&H a few years ago (2010). Too bad = I thought that it was a really great product.

Oh Well == "Progress Marches On."

-0-

Chris T Loc: from England across the pond to New England

I bought two identical Polaroid 64GB cards ... one, I'm still using ... the other one - in my Nikon D3200 - screwed up, good and proper ...

I can't get anything off it, anymore, at all ... even though the first off-loading onto the PC worked fine, but the shots only show up as half in screensaver!

Chris T Loc: from England across the pond to New England

Sounds like you stumbled onto a GREAT product, James ... why don't you ask B&H to look for another one, for you?

11bravo

Samsung 64gb and 32gb non-micro cards. Now that Samsung only makes micro cards, Sandisk 64 and 32gb cards. Have some older, slower Lexer 16gb cards. Never had one go bad, but I copy to laptop's internal HDD, AND an external HDD. Only after I have two copies do I reformat card in camera.

I use a card reader to copy the SD card to the HDD's. This allows me to use TeraCopy (free on windows) to do the copy as it verifies each file copied with a CRC check.

I've heard that it's better to use full size SD cards rather than micro cards in your camera. Opinions?

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Lifetime warranties are nice but I use Sandisk Pro and have had two cards go bad. The warranty does not bring your images back. Their are systems that can recover those images but it is not always 100% successful. My best advice is that after taking shots you back up the images you like. You never know when the card will go bad, even Sandisk cards.

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

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Sorry I got the name wrong -- it is called "PhotoSafe".... (However = Currently Unavailable).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OVVTWNU/?tag=05060702-20

And another.........

https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/80794-photo-safe-ii

=0=

MrGNY Loc: New York

The card reader can be bad if the card works fine in the camera and you can use the camera to download to computer.

Whoops I did not hit quote reply.