I'm sure this is easily found on the Google-net, but I'd figure I'd check in here first. Twice in the last week my memory card has had errors which destroy one or more of the photos taken that day. Not too big a deal, however, its happened before I had a chance to upload AND twice in a week. Any thoughts?
yes, unfortunately, every brand of card is prone to write errors. I used to use a lot of Lexar CF cards at my old job and they failed routinely.The SanDisk Extreme cards are the most reliable (IMHO), although I did have one corrupt image on my 8GB Extreme III this past week.
The best maintenance for your cards is to use your camera to format every time you clear your card and don`t use your cards for long-term storage. One of my photographers bought a huge no-name card and kept photos on it for almost a year. Of course, the card failed tragically and massively - all was lost, there was nothing left for me to recover.
So it`s not always failure, but a failure to format. Formatting will recreate the file system and if there is a bad part of the card, formatting will mark that part unusable.
I have had problems with a few xd cards which I've thrown away. As my SLR takes both xd and CF I'm sticking with CF cards in that camera now and so far I've had no probs with them (one SanDisk CF card is 6 yrs old and has been filled many times). As Will said best to upload images regularly if possible - although that is not possible when travelling. My approach to minimising the risk when travelling or attending special events like weddings is to use both my SLR and a compact which means if the card goes wrong in one I should still have some images from the other, I have also tended to buy medium sized cards to minimise the number of images that are lost if a card corrupts but I may have to rethink that now I've starting shooting RAW.
I can only echo the others... first step is to format the card and try again, if it continues to fail, then ditch the card and purchase another. All of my photos are backed up onto 2 external hard-drives which are kept at separate locations. I too have a camera which holds CF and XD, so I mainly use my CF first and foremost and then use the XD if I ever run out of space, and am not able to clear the CF. I do notice the read-speed is certainly different on both.
However, I have had XD cards in the ocean, and get really wet and salt encrusted, yet I was able to clean the terminals and still retrieve every shot. Its a sad day when your non-waterproof camera takes a dunking in the ocean. :(
If I get a corrupted shot, I ensure I format the card. If it happens again with that card, I toss it, or mark it with a big red X and only use it for snapshots.
Flash memory, as a general rule, gives 10000 reads/writes per sector. Formatting doesn't hurt (much) because it just changes the first character of the filename to a _ or similar character (it doesn't actually erase anything), but it benefits as it allows "neat" writing to the card. It is, however, identical to using the "delete all" function. No, really. Many people think it is different, but it isn't. A true format, for which you need special software, will take up to 30 minutes or so for an 8GB card and has to be done on your computer.
Anyway, I do agree that better quailty cards last longer and get less errors. I use Sandisk Extreme Pro cards, but the old Ultra and Extreme cards served well too when I used them.
One last thing - if you in-camera delete the last shot you took, no problem. But if you go back through your shots and delete random bad ones (in-camera) and then keep shooting, you increase the odds of corrupted files on the card. So if the shots matter, don't do that!
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The best maintenance for your cards is to use your camera to format every time you clear your card and don`t use your cards for long-term storage. One of my photographers bought a huge no-name card and kept photos on it for almost a year. Of course, the card failed tragically and massively - all was lost, there was nothing left for me to recover.
So it`s not always failure, but a failure to format. Formatting will recreate the file system and if there is a bad part of the card, formatting will mark that part unusable.
However, I have had XD cards in the ocean, and get really wet and salt encrusted, yet I was able to clean the terminals and still retrieve every shot. Its a sad day when your non-waterproof camera takes a dunking in the ocean. :(
Flash memory, as a general rule, gives 10000 reads/writes per sector. Formatting doesn't hurt (much) because it just changes the first character of the filename to a _ or similar character (it doesn't actually erase anything), but it benefits as it allows "neat" writing to the card. It is, however, identical to using the "delete all" function. No, really. Many people think it is different, but it isn't. A true format, for which you need special software, will take up to 30 minutes or so for an 8GB card and has to be done on your computer.
Anyway, I do agree that better quailty cards last longer and get less errors. I use Sandisk Extreme Pro cards, but the old Ultra and Extreme cards served well too when I used them.
One last thing - if you in-camera delete the last shot you took, no problem. But if you go back through your shots and delete random bad ones (in-camera) and then keep shooting, you increase the odds of corrupted files on the card. So if the shots matter, don't do that!