PDA

View Full Version : Typical SD card life?


SXRguyinMA
10-16-2009, 10:35 AM
Ok funny thing. Went to take some pics of my dog playin in the snow this morning and when I turned my camera on the screen stayed black for 15 seconds or so then said there was a problem with the format of the SD card, said it was unuseable or something to that effect. I thought it was strange seeing how I used it yesterday to take some pics.

Now this card is a 2GB version, has been in my cam for at least 2 years now and sees a lot of use. Is it normal for SD cards to just give up and die randomly? I put the card in a card reader and into a USB port on my computer, and nothing ever showed up.

I put the card in the camera and used the USB cable and nothing happened. I put an older 512MB SD card in the camera and it works fine, so the cam is good. Is it possible the card just hit the end of its life?
gaz_the_chav
10-16-2009, 10:41 AM
Is the SD card branded at all like for example SanDisk Ultra II or is it an 'unbranded' SD card?

-gaz
SXRguyinMA
10-16-2009, 10:43 AM
I believe its a San Disk card, I'll double check in a couple hours when I go home for lunch
gaz_the_chav
10-16-2009, 10:58 AM
Do so. Some SanDisk cards come with recovery software and or a lifetime warenty depending on the type. I will post some links depending on the card.

-gaz
SXRguyinMA
10-16-2009, 11:03 AM
awesome thanks :up:
FuzzyPlushroom
10-16-2009, 11:23 AM
A couple years might have been enough; flash memory can (of course) only sustain so many read/write cycles. I had a 128MB CompactFlash card that was surplus from my grandfather's real-estate office fail on me after a couple months of my using it; it'd probably had several years of fairly moderate use. It did the same thing - it was recognised either as unformatted or not at all. (I now have a great 1GB card waiting for a tiny case mod (or used DSLR purchase) because the camera died not long after...)

Good call on the warranty, Ned!
Oneslowz28
10-16-2009, 11:59 AM
I find that my CF cards last about 20-25k photos each. This is because they get 1 write and 3 read cycles with each photo I take. I am lazy and back up my photos in 3 different locations straight from the card. It kills my CF cards faster but they are cheap.
SXRguyinMA
10-16-2009, 01:19 PM
its a SanDisk 2GB SD card. on the back it says BE0727111880G