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01/26/2005 02:03:02 PM · #1 |
| This may be a dumb question but I'm going to ask anyway! What is the life of a CF card? Just curious! |
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01/26/2005 02:04:49 PM · #2 |
I have had 1 for a few years now and its still going strong.
James |
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01/26/2005 02:06:26 PM · #3 |
The last time I looked they were usually in the area of 1 million read/write cycles. (If you want to google for it more, "read/write cycles" is the usual term for rating functional life of flash memory)
Message edited by author 2005-01-26 14:07:13. |
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01/26/2005 02:06:31 PM · #4 |
Each one is different. YOu have to keep in mind they're hardware, like any hard drive, computer, cell phone..whatever..they all die at different times.
Generally speaking, a couple of years (or even more) isn't a lot to expect. |
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01/26/2005 02:13:49 PM · #5 |
The flash memory's lifetime is currently something like 100k-300k write cycles. What matters is how often a praticular location is written to, not the number of writes to the card as a whole. In normal use, the card will becom obsolete long before the memory fails.
I have seen CF cards fail due to excessive writes, however. At work we have a machine that is run by a low-end PC, and the boot drive on the PC was originally a CF card! The card was written to so often that it tended to fail after less than a year. After we killed at least three cards, we reconfigured the PC.
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01/26/2005 02:15:52 PM · #6 |
| Thanks, I shoot high volume every weekend and it wouldn't be good if one just up and died on me! |
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01/26/2005 02:20:18 PM · #7 |
even at 100k cycles, there are 365 days in a year. Assuming you can keep a card 3 years (you will get a new cam and need abigger one i'm sure before then) that is 100 write cycles per day . Not a concern.
A magazine did a test - the took al the memory cards, took pics, then abused the cards (washer/dryer, drive over them with cars, dropped them, etc.) NO failures (as in data loss). One card had to be manually bent to fit in the card reader, but it worked.
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01/26/2005 02:42:33 PM · #8 |
Has anyone had one that died via natural causes? I've never heard of one failing.
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01/26/2005 02:52:16 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by louddog:
Has anyone had one that died via natural causes? I've never heard of one failing. |
One of my SM cards stopped working one day...if you stick it in the camera it reads "card error" or something like that and there's no way to get to the formatting menu or do anything with it. Oh well...it fortunately was not one of my bigger cards so it wasn't a big loss.
I haven't had my CF card all that long (got my D70 for xmas), so I can't speak for those... |
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01/26/2005 03:01:58 PM · #10 |
I had a SanDisk 512mb CF card that died after a weekend of taking pictures. None of the images could be recovered using SanDisk's recovery software and the camera no longer recognized the card. It couldn't even be reformated. I sent it back to SanDisk and they sent me a replacement, free of charge.
Sucks that I lost all those shots, though.
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01/26/2005 03:55:32 PM · #11 |
As for physical damage, read this:
//www.sandisk.com/pressrelease/20040823.htm
I think for all intense purposes any name-brand CF card will serve you pretty well for a few years 'hobby' usage. I do know one pro who replaces them as a matter of course after 1 year... That's where I got my 1Gb cards from. :-).
His reasoning is simply to not use any older cards that might fail, as someone is paying the bill, and 'the cf card ate my homework' wont cut it. He also upgrades camera bodies every 2 years or so for the same reason....
Cheers, CHris H.
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01/26/2005 04:07:18 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by louddog:
Has anyone had one that died via natural causes? I've never heard of one failing. |
The catch is, you can't tell whether a card dies of natural causes without sending to a specialist for root cause analysis. There they can use microscopes to determine which part failed, and check things like carbon scoring which can indicate a marginalized component as a source.
Because root cause analysis is very expensive, it tends not to be done for things like CF cards which are pretty much consumables.
You can dramatically shorten the life span of an electronic component by subjecting it to static electricity. IE - don't rub a styro coffee cup or scuff across a carpet then handle a CF card :) But some just keep ticking. From what I know (based on data center disk failure) I would guess that most CF cards that die aren't due to write cycles being exceeded, but rather slow degradation of internal components based on electrostatic discharge. Takes time, but it's amazing how deadly it is to electronics.
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01/26/2005 04:24:09 PM · #13 |
I had one go through the wash, that was the end of it.
In terms of write cycles I doubt that anyone would wear one out using it in a camera.
As for replacing them periodically, I don't think that is such a good thing to do. Most failures in electronics are what are call infant failures, these are failures that show up in the first few hours to tens of hours of use. In truth if you have a card that has worked over the last year it is more likely to work over the next year then a band new one.
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01/26/2005 04:55:03 PM · #14 |
Great/funny article! Someone had a thread on card durability a while ago in which someone posted a link to some tests which were run on the six most popular types of media. As I recall, they all did very well in the standard tests (like the washing machine), although they noted that only two of the cards survived the "nail to a tree" test. |
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