[Cremetti]

Having used Compact Flash now for more than a year, I'm delighted to say that none have ever failed me.
Do you find flash memory reliable?

[EnglishBob]

Never had a card go bad, been using CF since 1998 when I got my first digital camera, a Kodak 200+

[Cremetti]

That's very impressive.

These days, I always expect goods to fail very quickly. Flash seems to be the exception.
Do you keep to one or two specific manufacturers, Craig?

[Wedding Shooter]

I had a problem at Friday's wedding. I deleted some photos off the card while it was still in the camera. I also changed the lens a lot without switching off the camera. These are two things I never do usually. My card reported about 80+ corrupted photos when I tried to download them using the reader.

I tried two recovery programmes I have which were unable to do the job. I then tried plugging in the camera using a USB cable direct rather then with the reader and was able to download the corrupted files perfectly.

Pretty scary - but it all worked out ok.

[EnglishBob]

I've used several different brands over the years... the first few were Kodak cards, the majority have been scandisk... though I have a couple of PNY 4GB cards that perform perfectly well.

[Cremetti]

I had a problem at Friday's wedding......................... My card reported about 80+ corrupted photos when I tried to download them using the reader.....................

.........Pretty scary - but it all worked out ok.

Very worrying for you, I would think. Glad it was ok in the end though.

[NT73]

So far, touch wood, yes. :/

[shuttertalk]

I had a problem at Friday's wedding. I deleted some photos off the card while it was still in the camera. I also changed the lens a lot without switching off the camera. These are two things I never do usually. My card reported about 80+ corrupted photos when I tried to download them using the reader.

I tried two recovery programmes I have which were unable to do the job. I then tried plugging in the camera using a USB cable direct rather then with the reader and was able to download the corrupted files perfectly.

Pretty scary - but it all worked out ok.

That is scary... maybe it's your reader that's dying?

The other day I took 3 shots in a row - 2 bad and 1 good, and I accidentally deleted the good one by mistake... Doh! What recovery programs do you guys use? Might give it a go to try and recover...

[Wedding Shooter]

If you haven't written over the top of the card you have a good chance. The San Dusk cards come with built in software which is really quite good. I use them.

[Keith Alan]

Re: Wedding Shooter's story--I never delete individual photos from a card, as many tales of corruption seem to include that detail.

I had a Lexar card get corrupted once, but there were some powerful electromagnetic "events" close to the camera during that shoot, and it never gave me problems again, so that's explainable.
Other than that one time, I've never had a card failure of any kind.
I try to format my cards in the device every 3rd or fourth time I need to delete photos/data, as this helps keep cards running smoothly.

Over the years of using Memory Sticks, I mostly bought Sony but have a few SanDisk.
All of my CF cards are SanDisk.
My microSD cards (phones and MP3 player) are also SanDisk.
Even my 2 card readers are SanDisk.
Plus my favorite USB flash drive.
And my MP3 player.

To be honest, I've always had perfect performance from SanDisk and Sony flash memory products, and they seem to be the main patent holders and innovators in this market so I stick with them.

Although there is the curious case of Canon 5DmkII owners who report complete camera lockup when using SanDisk Extreme IV 8gb cards when shooting video. Or is it 32gb?
Something like that--an odd case of incompatibility.

Compared to the early days of digital, card failures are very rare.
At least among people who take photography seriously and treat their gear with respect.

[Keith Alan]

If you haven't written over the top of the card you have a good chance. The SanDisk cards come with built in software which is really quite good. I use them.

Not always, but some of my SanDisk cards came with a mini-CD in the box containing their recovery utility.
Never needed it so I can't offer an opinion, but if any company could create a working recovery program it would be SanDisk.

The fact that they give it away free earns my respect.
It means they want to bail us out even after we have made mistakes or had some bad luck.
Do airlines give you a parachute?

Probably cuts down on the number of phone calls and emails they have to deal with.

[matthew]

I used to have two problems with my CF Cards. One was that occasionally Lightroom would tell me that it found files that were unreadable; the solution to that was to copy the identified files to the hard drive and import them from there. Switching the card from my faster FireWire reader to a slow USB2 reader also solved the problem. However, that hasn't happened in a couple of years, so it's more likely to be a Lightroom bug that was fixed than a problem with the cards. The other problem that I had was that my Olympus E-1 would occasionally lock up, and even having its main circuit board replaced didn't fix it. Following some advice on a 4/3 forum, I stopped deleting files and started formatting the cards routinely - shoot, download, format, and repeat - and the camera never locked up again.

Rob Galbraith has a great article on CF/SD memory performance:

The speediest memory cards use single level cell (SLC) memory (SanDisk calls this binary-type memory). This type of flash memory also offers the highest number of erase/write cycles. The alternative is multi level cell (MLC) memory, which is slower and less expensive per MB than SLC, which in turn translates into lower-priced CompactFlash and SD/SDHC cards, but also a lower erase/write cycle specification. Regardless of whether a card contains SLC or MLC memory, it's designed to keep on working even after a few cells have expired, and even a busy photographer's flash memory card won't start turning off a significant number of memory cells until after many years of service.

[Wedding Shooter]

I always format in camera after downloading and I am sure the problem was because I deleted these photos in camera.

[EnglishBob]

Never had the problem, but then I always format my cards before shooting.

[zanjoeh]

I have a Kingston and it hasn't failed me yet! Excpet for those glitches on my part wherein I press delete all.. Teeheee.

But I do have friends who have bad memory cards. I forgot the name but one resulted in her pictures becoming GREEN for no reason and the worse is the computer wont read the pictures anymore.