A Cautionary Tale – SD cards

[Caracus]

Back in October I went on the holiday of a life time, a three and a half week drive around the west coast of America. I took my new Canon 6D with me and captured probably some of the best photos I have ever taken. After about a week I downloaded the files from the SD card to my laptop but these nearly filled the remaining space on the laptop and so I did not download the card for the rest of the holiday. The card was a 32gb Sandisk card brought new from a reputable high street retailer, I have no reason to believe that the card is anything but genuine. After downloading the card it stayed in the camera for the rest of the holiday which included trips to Yosemite, Death Valley, the ‘Big Sur’ and San Francisco amongst many other places. I took around 5000 photos in all. Upon return I used the camera for a few more shots and stupidly did not backup the card.

At one point I tried to use the camera but found that it was displaying a card error. I tried the card in numerous card readers all of which reported it unreadable.


I was not that panicked at this stage believing that even though the card was dead that I was likely to be able to recover the photos with the assistance of a data recovery company.


SD cards have in the main consisted of a ‘controller ‘chip and a second chip contacting the actual data. In circumstances such as the above scenario it is the ‘controller’ chip that is damaged and not the chip storing the actual photos. In this scenario the data can usually be recovered for a fee of around £100 – 150.


The card was not physically damaged and had not suffered any physical trauma whilst in the camera


I sent the card away for analysis but the company had to return it with no data recovered as the SD card was a ‘monolithic’ design with the controller chip and the data chip being in a single package on the PCB inside the card. It is not impossible to recover data in these circumstances but the cost is well …quite prohibitive.


My next camera purchase will now be a 5D mark III with dual card slots…. Oh and a better backup regime!

 

[simonblue]

Yep better back up regime,plus if i was doing an trip like this,i would be using smaller card 4gb & 8gb,have you tried Sandisk own recover software ?

 

[Taff]

I tend to only buy 8gb cards and take about max 300 photos. I would rather loose a few photos than the lot. Fell so sorry for you as it must have been an amazing trip to have taken so many.

I guess you will have to return to America and repeat the trip of a life time now.

 

[Caracus]

Cards completely unreadable, defo a hardware fault so no chance of any recovery via software. If it wasn't a 'monolithic' chip the data could have been recovered by removing the data chip (physically) from the PCB and reading it with some specialist equipment (which mimics the 'controller' card). Being as its monolithic the process is much more involved and hence expensive. I take point about smaller cards, the large capacities can make you lazy with regard to backing up.... lesson learnt all round me thinks

 

[rob-nikon]

Having experienced a card failure before I was gutted to lose a days worth of photos, I couldn't imagine losing all photos from a trip like yours. Dual slots is a great asset, my camera has them and I always use backup rather than overflow. I use 4x 8gb cards in slot 1 and a 32gb card in slot 2. I feel this is quite a nice backup system but I'm thinking of adding an additional large card, maybe a 64gb that I back up the 32gb card to every night and leave in the hotel room. A backup is not backup when they are all stored in the same place, if someone stole your camera with two large cards in the dual slots you would still be in the same situation. I keep my 8gb cards in a hard case in my pocket rather than the camera bag in case my camera bag is stolen.

I'm hoping 8gb cards swapped out during the day, a 32gb card left in the camera all the time and backed up to a 64gb in the evening that is left in the hotel room will be my best system. Dual slot cameras also let you copy data from a full card to an empty card so you don't even need to take a laptop with you. I've been thinking about this for a while as I've booked a couple of nights on Skomer in July and want to make sure I don't lose any photos.

 

[Caracus]

Having experienced a card failure before I was gutted to lose a days worth of photos, I couldn't imagine losing all photos from a trip like yours. Dual slots is a great asset, my camera has them and I always use backup rather than overflow. I use 4x 8gb cards in slot 1 and a 32gb card in slot 2. I feel this is quite a nice backup system but I'm thinking of adding an additional large card, maybe a 64gb that I back up the 32gb card to every night and leave in the hotel room. A backup is not backup when they are all stored in the same place, if someone stole your camera with two large cards in the dual slots you would still be in the same situation. I keep my 8gb cards in a hard case in my pocket rather than the camera bag in case my camera bag is stolen.

I'm hoping 8gb cards swapped out during the day, a 32gb card left in the camera all the time and backed up to a 64gb in the evening that is left in the hotel room will be my best system. Dual slot cameras also let you copy data from a full card to an empty card so you don't even need to take a laptop with you. I've been thinking about this for a while as I've booked a couple of nights on Skomer in July and want to make sure I don't lose any photos.

Good points, i always thought that sort of physical damage to the card that failure of this magnitude with branded media would be a real rarity, maybe I was just really unlucky. I have bought a couple of new high capacity SD cards and think buying some smaller capacity CF cards to go with a 5D mk III is a good idea to 'condition' me into a better backup regime! I will be sending the card off to a different recovery company in the new year and hope to recover (at least some of) the photos all be it at a high cost!

 

[dinorock]

Cards completely unreadable, defo a hardware fault so no chance of any recovery via software. If it wasn't a 'monolithic' chip the data could have been recovered by removing the data chip (physically) from the PCB and reading it with some specialist equipment (which mimics the 'controller' card). Being as its monolithic the process is much more involved and hence expensive. I take point about smaller cards, the large capacities can make you lazy with regard to backing up.... lesson learnt all round me thinks

why on earth did you not back-up to the cloud or somewhere else instead of filling up your laptop and a small portable hard drive is about £70 for 2 tb could have solved all your problems. sorry but i would have sorted out my photo requirements before worrying if i had my passport or not. you really should have been more organised also big yes to smaller cards less to lose if it goes wrong. sorry you lost your pics though bummer!

 

[tijuana taxi]

Whilst I do commiserate with you I find it incredible that having planned the trip so little thought was given to backing up your photos

External HDD cost so little these days for 500GB and surely could have been purchased once you realised the Laptop was nearly full. Alternatively couldn't you have purged the laptop, must have a very small HDD if 32GB all but filled it up

*Edit* Ditto Mike then and good idea about the cloud, forgot about that solution

 

[Caracus]

Whilst I do commiserate with you I find it incredible that having planned the trip so little thought was given to backing up your photos

External HDD cost so little these days for 500GB and surely could have been purchased once you realised the Laptop was nearly full. Alternatively couldn't you have purged the laptop, must have a very small HDD if 32GB all but filled it up

*Edit* Ditto Mike then and good idea about the cloud, forgot about that solution

Was my honeymoon so had other things to worry about in run up to going away! Fortunately the missus made good use of the Canon body I bought her as a present for the the holiday so not all was lost! I could have deleted some stuff on the laptop (it had a 120gb SSD) but was caught up with the travelling and enjoyment of the holiday. Was just a stupid mistake that I will know (probably quite literally) pay quite heavily for. With cloud computing and hotel Wifi being quite ubiquitous now that's another reason my actions are so frustrating.

 

[Jackwow]

My next camera purchase will now be a 5D mark III with dual card slots…. Oh and a better backup regime!

No need to go to the expense of buying a 5D3 as your 6D with single SD card slot is just fine.

Your problem was going on a "holiday of a lifetime" with a laptop with limited spare hard disk space plus not uploading your images every day, which are fundamental mistakes?! Don't blame the 6D or SD cards, blame yourself!

 

[Caracus]

No need to go to the expense of buying a 5D3 as your 6D with single SD card slot is just fine.

Your problem was going on a "holiday of a lifetime" with a laptop with limited spare hard disk space plus not uploading your images every day, which are fundamental mistakes?! Don't blame the 6D or SD cards, blame yourself!

All true but given that even one days photography (like a wedding) could be a tragic loss with a similar failure and you would have to rely on in camera redundancy (or multiple bodies) for safety as you would be unlikely to have much time to back up photos externally then I would now lean towards multiple card slots for my next camera... not infallible by any means but one less point of failure. Love the 6D btw would be better with two cars slots like the comparable Nikon body though!

 

[digital]

I once had a 2GB card go bad on me in Central America but discovered the problem after losing just two images. Since my present cameras are producing much larger images I've had to use larger cards so I make sure I check the camera can read the cards during the day. Each evening I back up to a laptop and a Colorspace UDMA2 (I used to use a 500GB laptop hard drive in an external USB case). My wife keeps the full cards with her and the laptop and UDMA2 are with me and are kept separately. It may sound OTT but with the longhaul trips we do (Antarctica and Galapagos next) I'm not into losing any images if I can help it!