Longevity of SD cards

7 years 4 months ago #508505 by Kenya See
General rule of thumb, how long in theory are SD cards good for?  Do they deteriorate?  


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7 years 4 months ago #508508 by effron
The only reason I've ever replaced any memory card is for capacity. I have a couple 256mb SDs that still work fine, but in my D800 that's about five photos....

Why so serious?
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7 years 4 months ago #508521 by Prago
I have 256MB SD memory cards from 2003 that work perfectly fine today.  I don't use them, but know they work. 

SWM into chainsaws and hockey masks seeks like-minded SWF. No weirdos, please
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7 years 4 months ago #508564 by Ben Vanderbilt
Yeah, as long as the card isn't physically damaged, it should work indefinitely.  


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7 years 4 months ago - 7 years 4 months ago #508573 by Screamin Scott
All of mine work... They go back to 2003 or thereabouts. Only I have replaced the older ones with newer, higher capacity cards. Only issue I ever had was with an older Lexar card, (which Lexar walked me thru fixing it was a software issue)...

Scott Ditzel Photography

www.flickr.com/photos/screaminscott/

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7 years 4 months ago #508605 by Moe
Has anyone had a card fail?


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7 years 4 months ago #508677 by Alex

effron wrote: The only reason I've ever replaced any memory card is for capacity. I have a couple 256mb SDs that still work fine, but in my D800 that's about five photos....


:agree:  same here.  I have in 'case of emergency' older cards stashed all over the place.  I think I have a few 8GB in my car!  In my office drawer, I know there are some 256mb cards floating around in there too.  That is jumping way back!

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7 years 4 months ago #508848 by rogdel
Hm, I think as long there's no physical damage, there's no real expiration date that you need to worry about on SD cards. Regardless, I try to use my older cards only in case of emergencies.


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7 years 4 months ago #509008 by srubio77
Don't know, but I pick up new ones every year or so and throw them into rotation for good measure.


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