Which SD Card Brand?

[_larky]

Hello.

Recently at work we've been getting through SD cards at a silly rate, about 60 in 6 months. They get fairly heavy use, but not as much as I put my CF cards through. We've tried all the well known brands, no good. So, which SD cards do you all use and what would you suggest? Im' not an SD guy, I've always shot on CF or film.

 

[back alley]

the only card that i have ever had a problem with was a kodak card...which i find odd as they are made by lexar and i have never had a problem with a lexar card.

 

[sjw617]

I have an SD card I use for my P&S that is over 5 years old and never an issue with it. I use Sandisk. Can you explain the problems with the cards you are going through?

Steve

 

[rover]

I have never had a problem with Sandisk cards either.

 

[niels christopher]

I used many Sandisk cards (CF, mostly) and they have never failed on me. 🙂

 

[swoop]

I use Sandisk Ultra's at 4GB. I've had two give me issues. But all the other ones work fine. But like you I go through a lot and take thousands of photos a month. It's a loss many people don't think about or understand with digital. Flash memory wears out after a bit. Some sooner.

The write speeds are kind of meaningless. They allow you to transfer photos faster to your computer, but for actually photographing in sequence the in camera buffer is responsible for most of that.

 

[_larky]

Hello everyone, thanks for the input. Seems buying SD can be tricky 🙂

The problems we get are simple total failure, to the point where nothing can see them, you can't format them, you cant even use what would normally be considered illegal means to gain access, they are simply dead. I'm in the market a: for work and b: for the X100 when it comes out.

In my Nikon I use Kingston 8GB cards, never had an issue. But Kingston USB sticks, I'll never touch them again. Sandisk always seemed a lot of cash for not much card, but I was buying legit so maybe I should try eBay 😉

I guess the thing to do would be purchase one of each card and hammer them to death, see which lasts the longest. I'll report back 🙂

 

[pvdhaar]

I've lost data using an unknown brand of SD card. But there's no guarantee that using storage cards from the 'better' brands do work correctly; I've also lost data stored on two EMTEC USB memory sticks (EMTEC being the former BASF memory product division).

The brands that have given me no reliability problems after intensive and prolonged use so far are Sandisk, Kingston and Panasonic.

 

[dexdog]

All 8 of my SD cards are SanDisk. No problems at all. All of my CF cards are SanDisk, too- they seems to be a decent combination of price and quality, and I usually buy them at Amazon.com.

 

[Carterofmars]

SanDisk Extreme III. 30mbs.

 

[LKeithR]

The only cards I've ever had fail were cheap "no-names". My (genuine) Sandisk and Lexar cards have never given me any problems. And don't waste your money on faster cards; the speed difference is so minimal I simply can't see the advantage of buying them...

 

[MC JC86]

And don't waste your money on faster cards; the speed difference is so minimal I simply can't see the advantage of buying them...

This can be true, but is subjective. Definitely varies dependent on camera, file size and application. If you're using a card reader to transfer, times can be effected by card speed, regardless of impact on write speed in camera.

 

[Frank Petronio]

I've shot digital since the 90s and never had a problem with a new card, they became obsolete before they fail.... I reformat for every new session and use a card reader. I know cards fail just as hard drives will, but knock on wood....

It's the damn cheap card readers that fail often enough that I buy a couple at a time now.

Just an oddball thing, but could it be your upload workflow, as in card reader, cable, USB port on your computer, etc? You've tested and eliminated those as being suspect right?

 

[Pablito]

No prob with SanDisk. Plenty probs with Kingston.

 

[fergus]

Never had problems with genuine Sandisk (extreme III) or lexar SD cards.

 

[Griffin]

I shoot the card until It's full and then I buy a new one. They're my second back-up.

 

[Fraser]

I've almost exclusively owned/used Sandisk - and <knock on wood> never had a single issue in all the years. Maybe I'm just lucky, because even a 1GB IBM Microdrive never gave me issues.

Forgot about the microdrives they were always good fun🙄
I always buy Lexar used them since Canon D60 days, touch wood never had a card fail.

 

[antiquark]

Card strategy:

- Lexar "HD VIDEO" cards. Camcorders use SD cards too these days. If I'm stuck taping something with my D90, it's good if the card can keep up.

- Make sure the card comes with a little carrying case. Otherwise you'll eventually have these bare cards sitting all over.

- Once you've filled a card, buy a card that's twice as big as the previous one. Exponential growth... at some point you'll get a big enough card that never gets filled. 🙂

- Walmart sells Lexar cards, so guess where I buy them...:angel:

 

[sepiareverb]

I like the Lexar cards, I use the 2GB ones since I got a great deal on a big pile of them as a closeout. They've worked 100% for me in M8s and M9s, the X1 and my Ricoh GRD2. I too use a card reader (in the expresscard slot of my MBP) and reformat every time I put one in a camera.

 

[LKeithR]

This can be true, but is subjective. Definitely varies dependent on camera, file size and application. If you're using a card reader to transfer, times can be effected by card speed, regardless of impact on write speed in camera.

True enough. Since I'm a slow, measured shooter I know the faster cards won't make any difference with my shooting style and the few seconds I might save when uploading to my computer just aren't worth the extra cost to me. I've also read (somewhere) that the faster cards are not as stable as the slower ones but I have no verification of this nor do I have any idea how it would affect real world use...