Compact Flash retirement?

[Kirk Gittings]

Fortunately I have never had a CF card fail, but I am a professional and worry about it. I have many CF cards but one ScanDisk Extreme IV that I use routinely. It has had thousands of images run through it. Do you just use these till they fail or is there some logic to retiring them? What fails in these things?

[ARD]

Fortunately I have never had a CF card fail, but I am a professional and worry about it. I have many CF cards but one ScanDisk Extreme IV that I use routinely. It has had thousands of images run through it. Do you just use these till they fail or is there some logic to retiring them? What fails in these things?
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As the card is steady state, the only part I can see breaking down is the chip. Extreme heat and cold can affect chips. As for life expectancy of a card it might be worth contacting the manufacturer, as with everything though, you could have one that lasts for a hundred photos, and another that lasts for a hundred thousand photos.

Best bet is to always carry plenty of cards and back up images regularly if possible.

[aduke]

I did a little surfing through manufacturer's web site. SanDisk didn't seem to have any information, but the Kingston site did.

In their "Tech Guide" for the Ultimate 266x card, they said that the card was rated for 10000 insertions. There was more information about the number of write cycles that the card will stand.

I would have included a URL to the document but they managed to hide it sufficiently that I couldn't get anything that seemed to be useful.

[Roy]

Do you just use these till they fail or is there some logic to retiring them? What fails in these things?
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It is unlikely that you will wear one out. The memory can only be written a limited number of times, about 1,000,000 times for the NAND type of flash memory used today. In addition, CF cards have error correction, bad block detection (bad blocks are no longer used) and wear levelling (distributes use evenly among all blocks).

The 10,000 insertion number quoted above is, I think, the typical life of the connector on the CF card. So if you insert the card once a day, you should get 25 years out of the card connector and the memory itself should still be going strong at the end of the connector life.

If that still leaves you unconfident, I recommend monthly replacement and that you mail the used cards to me. :-)

[spidermike]

I have read that you are more likely to suffer from data errors than card malfunction errors and that this can be reduced by reformatting the disc regularly (or even after each download).
Does anyone have any experience/comments on this?

[Kirk Gittings]

I have read that you are more likely to suffer from data errors than card malfunction errors and that this can be reduced by reformatting the disc regularly (or even after each download).
Does anyone have any experience/comments on this?
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As a precaution, I always do this. Wghether it makes a difference I have no idea. As I said I have never had a card fail.

If that still leaves you unconfident, I recommend monthly replacement and that you mail the used cards to me.

Sure Ray I will put you at the top of the list.

[Hank]

My wife and I shoot pro and work the dickens out of our cards.  The only real problems we had occurred early on when we were erasing rather than reformatting- a data issue rather than a mechanical malfunction.  All fixed with reformatting, thankfully.

We have recently retired a bunch of older 1gb cards, not because they were failing but because they were so slow that they impinged on our productivity compared to newer cards.

We did learn something recently worth passing along.  My wife inadvertently reformatted a card before downloading, but was able to recover the images by sending it off to LC Technology Interntional.  

Subsequent to that we bought a couple of new SanDisk Extreme firewire card readers which came bundled with RescuePRO Deluxe disc recovery software, coincidentally produced by LC Technology.  On installing that and exploring, we discovered a notice that has changed our reformatting methods.

They reported that some cameras reformat discs by completely wiping out the data rather than by simply making them unrecognizable, and that data could not be recovered from discs reformatted in that fashion.  They recommended that in such cases discs should be reformatted in your computer rather than your camera as a matter of course.  We did some testing and learned that our various D2X versions did in fact completely clean the discs, leaving nothing behind.  

We realized that we were lucky that our disc had been reformatted on an older Fuji S2 rather than a D2X, and have subsequently stopped all reformatting on our D2X's as a safety recaution against future mishaps.

A diversion from your original question, but worthwhile passing along, I thought.

BTW- I'm taking LC Tech's word that the chips are actually wiped, rather than a case of limitations on their software.  In either case, the effect is exactly the same, as the free software gives us file recovery capabilities at home.  It was $150 to have the files recovered by them, a reasonable solution in that case with a high dollar shoot on the line, but not a solution I'd care to repeat as a matter of course.

[Jack Varney]

I have had one SanDisk 8GB Ultra II fail ( "card not recognized"). This failure ocurred after reformatting and fortunately not after a shoot.

SanDisk replaced the card per their lifetime warranty. Be sure to register new cards at the SanDisk website and keep your receipts to make your claim process straightforward.

[Kirk Gittings]

They reported that some cameras reformat discs by completely wiping out the data rather than by simply making them unrecognizable, and that data could not be recovered from discs reformatted in that fashion. They recommended that in such cases discs should be reformatted in your computer rather than your camera as a matter of course. We did some testing and learned that our various D2X versions did in fact completely clean the discs, leaving nothing behind.

Hank,

Is there a list of which cameras do which?

[Jonathan Wienke]

There's no consistent warning sign a card is about to fail, it just does. But that is pretty rare; I have about 120,000 images through my CF cards and have not lost a single one yet. On important shoots, I use two bodies, so that if either fails, whether due to card, camera, lens, flash, or whatever, I can continue the shoot without losing everything.

[Chris_T]

They reported that some cameras reformat discs by completely wiping out the data rather than by simply making them unrecognizable, and that data could not be recovered from discs reformatted in that fashion.  They recommended that in such cases discs should be reformatted in your computer rather than your camera as a matter of course.  We did some testing and learned that our various D2X versions did in fact completely clean the discs, leaving nothing behind. 
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This is similar to reformatting or overwriting every bit on a hard drive. Simple reformatting is fast and will make the memory card/hd to appear as if it is squeaky clean. But in fact the old data still resides there, making it quite simple to recover them even after an unwanted reformatting or a crash of some kind. Overwriting (some will go as far as multiple times with differnt random patterns) every bit will ensure that the old data is gone forever. The idea is to prevent the old data from falling into the wrong hands. This can take a much longer time, especially on large hds. There was a story (news?) about a military plane crew smashing up the hds with axes after the plane crashed in an unfriendly land.