this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
1 points (100.0% liked)

Photography

33 readers
1 users here now

A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

So I take hundreds of photos a day, 5 days a week for work and have never had this happen to me before. I was copying my work onto my computer after working all day and 3/4 of the way, my sd card got corrupted and lost the ability to view/download my photos. On my computer and even on the camera. It's like the information was there, but my camera said "Can't play back" or something when trying to view, and my computer just showed it empty.

Luckily it was my biggest client, so it was not an issue to go back to reshoot my shots needed. But I'm very worried it will happen again. I have a big shoot today, with a potential big new client, and can't have this happen again. Do I need a new sd card? I only have another micro sd with the adapter, so I'm just debating going to get a new one right before my shoot.

Has this happened to anyone before? And how do I prevent this in the future?

Thank You

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] blueman541@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

Do SD cards go bad?

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: Here are ways cards exhibit failure. Might be completely or partial.

  1. Physical damage from wear, heat, mfg flaw, water, blunt force & static electricity.
  2. File corruption occur with camera or pin contact issue.
  3. Write cycle lifespan

SD cards are made of NAND flash chip which have different levels of write endurance depending which technology is used.

  • SLC 100K write cycles
  • MLC 10K
  • TLC 3K
  • QLC 1K

Example: Samsung STD or EVO card uses TLC chips making them super cheap and attractive to consumer. While their more expensive PRO card uses MLC that fewer people buy.

Most cards sold are TLC NAND with 3,000x write cycles. However, that is not a minimum cycle before failure but actually "MTBF". In other words 3K on average. It could survive much longer or fail sooner. All based on probability aka luck.

Lets be conservative assuming TLC will 90% survive 1K writes. If you fill up the card every day for work etc it will last about 3-years before you should think about replacing.

 

Do I need a new sd card?

SD cards are cheap. Your a PRO working for money. I would get replacement just in case but better yet a dual card camera.