How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?

On Mon, 14 May 2007 21:31:01 -0500, "
wrote:

How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?

There's a "USE BY:" date encoded on all flash RAM cards (and USB
drives, too).
To see this information, you must use muriatic acid (can get it at
pool supply stores) and soak the card/drive in the acid for two days.
The info will then be visible; it will appear as bright red printing.

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spokesmen.

Toby wrote:
I have heard talk about 10 years for flash memory to retain data.

Toby
wrote in message
t...
How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?


thanks. so if i go on a 2 week vacation. I would not have worry
about my photos going bad.

wrote in message
et...
Toby wrote:
I have heard talk about 10 years for flash memory to retain data.

Toby
wrote in message
t...
How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?


thanks. so if i go on a 2 week vacation. I would not have worry
about my photos going bad.

All electronic devices can fail at any time.
There is very little chance it will happen during your two week vacation but
it could happen.
If the shots are really important you need to copy them to at least one
other place ASAP.
Some cameras support copying between cards if you have nothing else.

wrote in message
et...
Toby wrote:
I have heard talk about 10 years for flash memory to retain data.

Toby
wrote in message
t...
How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?


thanks. so if i go on a 2 week vacation. I would not have worry
about my photos going bad.

Absolutely - I would not hesitate to count on a card for that length of
time. These cards are specced to hold data for 10 years or more.

This actually a good question. The data does not last forever. Flash
memory stores its data as electrical charges. There is a finite, though
very small, leakage rate.
--

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/

"dennis@home" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
et...
Toby wrote:
I have heard talk about 10 years for flash memory to retain data.

Toby
wrote in message
t...
How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?


thanks. so if i go on a 2 week vacation. I would not have worry
about my photos going bad.

All electronic devices can fail at any time.
There is very little chance it will happen during your two week vacation
but it could happen.
If the shots are really important you need to copy them to at least one
other place ASAP.
Some cameras support copying between cards if you have nothing else.

Find somewhere which will copy from the card and burn to CD. Best
alternative is to buy one of them portable storage drives.
I have had stuff on cards for over a year with no problem - but I did buy a
proper card storage wallet to protect against shock and static.

Graham

wrote:
How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?

If you back up your photos it doesn't matter.
If you don't back up your photos then the photos will last
until they're lost.

--
Ray Fischer

"dennis@home"
Some cameras support copying between cards if you have nothing else.

That's interesting. Which ones? It could be very convenient.

Just D.

lid wrote:
wrote:
How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?

I think the SD-card spec says 10 years iirc.
Not that anyone should try the roulette game..

I suspect the longetivity of the 10000'th write isn't the same as for the
10'th one. No bias in to either one.


Since the cards haven't been out long enough for meaningful empirical
data, it is just a guess, anyway.

Ron Hunter wrote:
lid wrote:
wrote:
How long will photos stay on a sd card before going bad?

I think the SD-card spec says 10 years iirc.
Not that anyone should try the roulette game..

I suspect the longetivity of the 10000'th write isn't the same as for the
10'th one. No bias in to either one.


Since the cards haven't been out long enough for meaningful empirical
data, it is just a guess, anyway.

Well, it could be an educated estimate, which is remarkably much better
than a guess.

"Just D" wrote in message
...
"dennis@home"
Some cameras support copying between cards if you have nothing else.

That's interesting. Which ones? It could be very convenient.

My Olympus E500 can copy between the XD cards and the CF cards.
My Pentax Optio WP can copy between internal memory (only 12 Mbytes though)
and the SD cards.
What would be nice is a camera that can read/write USB memory sticks. It
should be easy as many can drive USB printers.