How reliable are memory flash cards?

One thing that worries me is taking out the memory card (SDHC) out of my 60D for file retrieval on the computer often. I never had a problem with the compact flash on my 20D years ago but felt like the contacts weren't exposed to touch and didn't exactly need to worry about static electricity in general.

Or am I thinking too much? I'd hate to go out on a paid shoot and suddenly the files are corrupted or gone. Any simple solutions? I understand there are rather expensive Wifi enabled memory card?

I think you're worrying too much.

But, if you're worried about taking the memory card in and out, just connect the camera to your computer directly and transfer from there. Or, you could go with a camera that has two memory card slots.

I have just started using SDHC cards so I don't have any extensive personal experience with them but I have not seen a lot of complaints about them failing or having contact problems. I haven't read a lot of posts about contact problems with the SD cards and certainly no more than the occasional post about someone bending the posts on their CF card reader. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

I agree with these guys. There's nothing to worry about. SD cards are very reliable, assuming you use a reliable brand.

Bryan

Aki78 wrote in post #16360154
One thing that worries me is taking out the memory card (SDHC) out of my 60D for file retrieval on the computer often. I never had a problem with the compact flash on my 20D years ago but felt like the contacts weren't exposed to touch and didn't exactly need to worry about static electricity in general.

Or am I thinking too much? I'd hate to go out on a paid shoot and suddenly the files are corrupted or gone. Any simple solutions? I understand there are rather expensive Wifi enabled memory card?

I used a T2i and 60D and a Sony P60 for a couple of years along with several SD cards. Through countless reformats and transfers from cameras and card readers, there were no problems with the cards.

To paraphrase Franklin Roosevelt, "The only thing you have to fear is fear itself."

I have had an SD sandisc extreme 32 gb bite the dust. Its the first time I had ever had a CF or the smaller cards ever die. It had been functioning fine. I changed cards and went to format it and it was dead. There was nothing on it so no harm no foul. The only problem I have had so far.

I have had two SD cards bite the dust.

#1 was a cheapy, and had issues from day one.
#2 was a Sandisk, that has been in and out of the camera so much the case was worn/chipped away and it no longer slides in and out of the camera/card reader nicely - it still works, but is sometimes finicky getting it to go into the reader (bear in mind it's been used 5 days a week for two years, in and out of the camera multiple times a day)

I have also had CF cards die,
A Lexar was DOA, not working out of the box.
A Sandisk failed after a big impact (dented the case, and did who knows what to the insides, I had to remove the case and carefully put it in my 350d to get the pics off)
And a Sandisk that failed after many years of shooting, I'm unsure as to the cause of the fault, other than it stopped working in one camera, then the other, but I retrieved the images off that too

I have the Transcend card. The reason why also asked is I never had any luck with USB flash drives. Most went kaput in about a year losing data. Guess I can only just hope?

only other way (than Wifi or tethered) to safeguard against a card failure is use a camera with two slots & write to both simultaneously...

Over thousands of shots, I've never had a Scandisk, or even a cheap, CF card fail. But I don't carry then naked in my pocket & take pains to try to keep crud from getting into those tiny little holes.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #16360390
I have had an SD sandisc extreme 32 gb bite the dust.

This is why I don't buy any cards larger than 2GB. I always COPY, instead of MOVE, format in the camera, and I always chimp when I have time.

As for USB flash drives, I've had one fail, out of about a dozen. Over time, anything can fail, so I always make multiple backups.

I've had 2 SD cards fail on me. (And I've lost 1 full sized SD card, and have had I think 3 micro cards go missing... Annoyingly small things.)

The first was kind of abused, got carried around in a pocket a few times when I had misplaced the case, and eventually split when it got dropped on a concrete floor. The memory still functioned, but it took very careful work in an electronics lab to get a proper connection to pull the data off.

The second was part of a UAV that we kind of accidentally slammed into the ground at several hundred km an hour. Surprisingly a CF card survived, but we were unable to locate the SD card in the remains.

On uptodate bodies the inbuilt USB transfer speed is fast, so dont take the Card from the body.
If you dont bend a pin or break a contact then it will be removal of card whilst a write operation is taking place that will corrupt a card- Has happened and it made the card inaccessible even to recovery software.
I use a twin card body now and never remove the cards. 2x 64GB- very expensive- but losing paid for shots could cost more.

I've never had any card fail, CF or SD, although I only used CF for a short time on an old P&S camera I had. I have a water resistant case that holds 4 cards in fitted nests. Protects them from just about any possible damage. I can pop that in a pocket and never worry about the cards picking up dirt or lint. I looked on Amazon, and there are many such options, one is a Pelican for $18 which holds up to 12 SD cards, safe and secure.