SD-Card Failure

[Danny_SWE]

When I started using my new E-M5.3 the SD Card suddenly broke! It seems there are some notch in the card slot so you have to be gentle when inserting. And also, if the edge brake. It does not work in that body anymore camera says "Insert SD Card". If I put the card in my G80 it works great again. So I had to open the wallet and buy myself a new SD Card for just this body. Just a heads up, be gentle!
Normally I transfer files through WiFi but when I have many files I use to remove card and put in the card reader. But after this I feel maybe USB-cable would be the best way, will try that next time.

Old broken card on top, new below

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[John King]

Sorry for your misfortune.

However, I've never broken any kind of card yet. I've had a couple of no name cards die, but that was over 20 years ago.

 

[comment23]

That top card looks ‘well used’ to me. Might just have been its time.

 

[Mike Wingate]

Wear and tear, consumerables.

 

[mauve]

I don't know why, but Olympus cameras are notorious for "eating" SD cards. It's the only brand I know that does that, and it always start in that same corner. Already my E-P1 destroyed a couple SD in its days, but others I had since do that as well. It's safest to read pictures in camera.

M.

 

[Robstar1963]

I’ve got a couple UHS11 v30 cards and one of the little plastic fins which seperate the contacts broke on one but it still works (that was on an Olympus - EM1X I think )

One issue I do have is If I download images through my iPad SD adapter to my iPad and then delete some of the images - I sometimes get issues when I reload the SD card back into the camera and get an error and have to re format and then it’s ok
I assume that deleting some of the images using the iPad creates some sort of glitch ?

 

[Fuzzdog]

I've had a couple of cards break in exactly that way - does seem like a weak point in the design.

 

[Robstar1963]

Yes those plastic fins between the contacts are very thin and extremely fragile !

 

[Danny_SWE]

That top card looks ‘well used’ to me. Might just have been its time.

Well, just some scratches. Before my E-M5.3 I used Panasonic bodies mostly, and removed card every time I should transfer files.
But I put some glue there to strengthen the corner and will keep on using it on my Panny bodies. Have not had that card too long, feels bad to just throw it away. It's time will come eventually, but not now!

 

[Petrochemist]

I used to keep a spare card in my wallet to ensure I never again arrived on location to find I'd left my card behind.
It split in half like this too before I ever used it

 

[speedy]

Micro SD card + adaptor for the win. Leave the adaptor in the camera, remove and reinstall micro card as required

 

[Holoholo55]

I’ve got a couple UHS11 v30 cards and one of the little plastic fins which seperate the contacts broke on one but it still works (that was on an Olympus - EM1X I think )

One issue I do have is If I download images through my iPad SD adapter to my iPad and then delete some of the images - I sometimes get issues when I reload the SD card back into the camera and get an error and have to re format and then it’s ok
I assume that deleting some of the images using the iPad creates some sort of glitch ?

I never delete images from a card in a camera, device, or computer. I copy over all the images I want to keep onto my computer and then erase the entire card by formatting it in camera. I only had problems reading files from the card when my card reader acted up. That's happened on a couple of occasions. Good thing I usually had spare card readers about.

 

[speedy]

If you're going to delete files from the SD card, do it in the camera. That way, the cameras file system knows where everything is/has gone. Same concept as formatting the card in the camera. Never had an issue doing this, I know if I accidentally delete/modify files off the card from my G9 on my computer, it slows it right down. I've also read plenty of complaints about slow read/write speed of cards in the G9, I'm 99.9% sure that's what causes it. Deleting files and in camera raw conversion/editing is just fine.

 

[Holoholo55]

Here's some tips about using memory cards. See Memory Card Best Practices.
https://www.pictureline.com/blogs/products/what-you-need-to-know-about-memory-cards

More, including a caution about erasing photos from the card in camera.
https://digital-photography-school.com/13-tips-for-using-and-caring-for-memory-cards/
https://www.diyphotography.net/not-delete-images-memory-card-using-camera/

 

[speedy]

Those links make very little sense. Sounds like a whole heap of personal opinion to me. Mixed in with garbage. For example, your camera is good at taking photos, but not good at organising them on an SD card? Really? I'd want nothing at all to do with a camera that can't manage to organise my photos on a storage medium. Makes no sense

 

[Toddster]

Those links make very little sense. Sounds like a whole heap of personal opinion to me. Mixed in with garbage. For example, your camera is good at taking photos, but not good at organising them on an SD card? Really? I'd want nothing at all to do with a camera that can't manage to organise my photos on a storage medium. Makes no sense

So I think that this will be debated until we no longer use SD cards. While I don't know for certain what goes on inside my camera I do know that my camera uses the exFAT file system. I believe that, through no fault of the camera, the exFAT system is prone to file fragmentation when individual files are deleted. There is nothing any camera manufacturer could do to change the nature of exFAT. exFAT is not journaled, uses a free space bitmap and is prone to fragmentation.

Does this usually cause problems when users delete individual files? No it does not. Does is ever? It can. And the more times a user deletes individual pictures (files) without reformatting the card the greater the risk. The reason is in the way that the exFAT system works (out of the control of the camera manufacturer). If a user has a card with several files and deletes a 4.1MB file that is stored between other files that 4.1 MB is now recorded as empty space available to be used (as expected). The problem is the file system wont wait for another 4.1MB file to fill that space, if the next file to be stored is 4.6MB it will put the first 4.1MB in that slot and the remaining .5GB in the next available slot. exFAT makes no attempt to keep all of a file together, it will write individual file clusters to the first available space. This causes file fragmentation. As a user deletes more and more individual files and continues using the card it will become more and more fragmented. Again, nothing the camera can do about it; the limitation is in the file system.

Does this usually cause problems? Again, no. It usually works quite well and is completely transparent to the user. On a spinning disk file fragmentation will start slowing things down, on flash memory there is no indication to the user that the storage is fragmented. I don't know for certain that fragmentation on an SD card would EVER cause a problem. I do remember the days when we were using non-journaled file systems on our PC's and had to run disk de-fragmentation to clean up the mess. Maybe it's the memory of watching the slow process of de-fragmenting a disk, maybe it's because I have a touch of OCD but, whatever the cause, I don't want my clusters broken up and scattered about. I like them all neatly in a row so I choose not to delete individual files on an SD card.

 

[PakkyT]

I don't know for certain that fragmentation on an SD card would EVER cause a problem.

It doesn't. On spinning media the fragmentation causes system slow down because you had to wait briefly between reads or writes for the platter(s) to spin speeds up or slow down (depending on where on the radius of the platter you needed to go next) and for the read/write arm to physically move to a new location. With solid state accessing any location in the memory space you just need the address and you are already there.

As to SD card reliability, here is an article the mirrors my own thoughts, but this guy actually dug into the exFAT specification for details on how it is used...
https://pawitp.medium.com/notes-on-exfat-and-reliability-d2f194d394c2

Part of he conclusion of the article is:

• The exFAT file system is not as fragile as anecdotes on the Internet may lead you to believe. Most failures are limited to the file being written and interrupted writes do not corrupt the entire file system. Anecdotes of corruption on the Internet are likely due to bad implementation of the file system rather than the file system design itself.

which is what I have indirectly maintained in other posts where SD corruption has come up for discussion. Note this article was not about SD cards at all but just the exFAT system on any media.

It's completely illogical (but we are humans so what can you do) to 100% trust our camera to record and store our memories & photography work without any doubt to the camera's abilities to do so, yet the idea of simply deleting a file from the card is inherently fraught with peril and should be avoided at all costs. Can't have it both ways. Either the camera can implement and use a file system correctly and safely or it can not. Picking which functions you want to arbitrarily decide are "bad" separate from any other file system function on that same platform is silly unless you have data to back up that a specific camera model XYZ has a particular problem that has been documented with a specific function. Then it would be known this is an issue with just that model. To make a blanket statement about an entire standard disk operating system that has been in use for a long time across many platforms and products based on "I read", "I heard", "I experienced once" is 'the sky is falling' mentality.

Any real (actual) problem with a camera writing to an SD card while being intermittent for any one user, should be readily repeatable across a large number of users that it would quickly be noted and reported as a real problem. I do not recall a camera body where it was discovered there was a bug in the firmware causing SD card problems which subsequently required issuing a FW update to fix. And if there was (I welcome correction if someone can point to one I missed), then I would say yes there was a problem with that one model and you should update the FW to fix it. But outside of that one, there is nothing supporting an inherent danger to your SD card if you delete individual files from the card any more than writing individual files are dangerous.

 

[speedy]

So I think that this will be debated until we no longer use SD cards.

Probably. I'm certainly no expert on the subject matter, nor am I trying to convince anyone else what they should, or should not be doing. But I do go back to around 2002 or 2003 with SD cards, & have had absolutely no hesitation in deleting pictures off my cards, using the camera. It was quite a few years before I even owned a card reader, so the only way was to plug the computer USB cable into the camera, and download that way. Limited card/memory space at the time meant plenty filling to the brim, and lots of cr@p photo deletion on the run. Or ride. Or whatever. In that time, I've only ever lost two Sandisk cards many many years back, & they only failed when trying to format them on the computer. I think.
In saying that, yeah, I'm a statistical sample size of precisely 1, but I've yet to see anything strong enough to convince me of the error of my ways

 

[Bushboy]

It seems like yesterday that a 2GB compact flash card, was like, wow! That’s huge! Lol
Holohola’s links were interesting, and a bit confusing too. But I liked the one from the guy who was in charge of manufacturing them. The guy who said don’t delete in camera.
So I did just that. Pulled the card outta my camera, stuck it in the computer, and selected only the pics I wanted to import, imported them, ejected the card, put card back in camera, and then what… oh yeah, menu page 1, card setup, all erase!
What is a bloke spoked to do???
Hey, I just bought a new 256GB Kingston. Holy crap, that’s huge!

 

[speedy]

Hmmmm. I was just reading here https://blog.photoshelter.com/2017/03/sd-cards-saved-photos/ , that SanDisk, Panasonic and Toshiba jointly developed the SD spec, and later formed the non-profit SD Association to guide the standard’s development.
I wonder if that has something to do with why I've never had any issues with them in my Panasonic cameras.