SanDisk CompactFlash 5000 Industrial Grade

SanDisk CompactFlash 5000 Industrial Grade

Anyone going to be buying one of these for their DSLR? Sure looks like a good safety net.

SanDisk blurb:
http://www.sandisk.com​/OEM/ProductCatalog(13​24)-CompactFlash_5000_Indu​strial_Grade.aspx

Example Pricing:
http://www.wdlsystems.​com/... ...s.cgi?r=detail&prod​_num=1SFIRX8&aisle_id=​899

The sandisk link doesn't work. I'm assuming that industrial grade is for people in harsh conditions like salt water or dusty environments. It probably has more sealing and can stand extreme humidity. The regular ultra series is good enough for me. Plus, $278 for an 8GB is quite high.

what confuses me is how there is no mention of just how fast this card is. certainly it has to be quite fast? or is it just very durable?

Try this side for info.

http://www.sandisk.com …000_Industrial_​Grade.aspx

midget wrote in post #3930167
what confuses me is how there is no mention of just how fast this card is. certainly it has to be quite fast? or is it just very durable?

30 megabytes/sec.

Denny G wrote in post #3931536
Try this side for info.
http://www.sandisk.com …000_Industrial_​Grade.aspx

Thank you for correcting the link.

No big deal. It is primarily a extended temp card probably -40 to +85C (although they don't say) instead of the standard 0-70C. They also test it to a mil standard packaging spec testing to environmental conditions that you would NEVER take your camera into.

This is probably much more of a deal for applications involving data collection in equipment that might be in a remote area for a long period of time - think railroad car, truck, weather station etc... It has little application in photography.

The memory chips that are in this device are no different than the ones that come in the card you buy retail. They are just tested to extended temp and there is a higher charge for that. Typically a very high percentage of the flash devices will run at those temps so it isn't a big deal.

The controller with its error checking (more than in is yours - where there is some) may have compatibility issues with your camera unless someone has checked this.

IMO, this is way, way, way, way overkill for photographic use.

J

These are designed primarily for industrial equipment like CNC machines and the like... probably more than anyone would ever need for photogaphy purposes.

What had me interested was the Mean Time to Failure. The Extreme III is only 1,000,000. This card is 3,000,000. It also does better leveling writes across the card.

MTTF of 1,000,000 expressed in what units? I didn't see that.

If it is hours, I would not worry about it. It will last longer than you will.

J.

According to the Product Manual, MTBF is 4,000,000 hours. That's about 6x my MTBF.

Jon wrote in post #3956181
According to the Product Manual, MTBF is 4,000,000 hours. That's about 6x my MTBF.

Actually Jon, it's probably more like 3x your MTBF; remember, one cannot use MTBF as a reliable indicator of the life expectancy of a single item, so one cannot rightly make a comparison based on their own life expectancy.

For all we know, the expected life span of these units could be a year or less... there's simply no way of knowing from the published MTBF value alone.

http://www.sandisk.com …l_Grade_Product​_Brief.pdf

In other words, it's for NASA. Not you and your XTi.

SimonG wrote in post #3956328
Actually Jon, it's probably more like 3x your MTBF; remember, one cannot use MTBF as a reliable indicator of the life expectancy of a single item, so one cannot rightly make a comparison based on their own life expectancy.

For all we know, the expected life span of these units could be a year or less... there's simply no way of knowing from the published MTBF value alone.

4,000,000 hours is on the order of 450 years; average life expectancy (MTBF) for humans in the US is around 70+ years. So, yeah, 6x.

cdifoto wrote in post #3956357
http://www.sandisk.com …l_Grade_Product​_Brief.pdf

In other words, it's for NASA. Not you and your XTi.

Nope - altitude 80,000 ft. and the temperature range is too narrow. It's not for them either.

Jon wrote in post #3956399
4,000,000 hours is on the order of 450 years; average life expectancy (MTBF) for humans in the US is around 70+ years. So, yeah, 6x.

Like I said Jon, one cannot use a MTBF value in the context of life expectancy. For example, a person my age has a MTBF of approximately 650 person-years (derived from 155 "failures" per 100k person-years), which is well in excess of my life expectancy. Remember, MTBF is a measure of the failure rate during the constant failure phase of an object's life span; properly used it is a measure of reliability, not the item's expected life.