How’s Your Memory?

Spring has arrived! Gloucester Courthouse, Virginia.
(click to enlarge)

How old are the memory cards you use in your camera(s)?  When was the last time you replaced the cards you most used?  How about your backup hard drive(s)?  How old are they?  Hard drives, whether traditional or solid state as well as our memory cards don't last forever.  If you want to better protect your images, you should think about periodically replacing your old storage devices with newer ones.   But when?

Let's first talk about the memory cards we use in our cameras.  I didn't know much about them except that experts seem to recommend replacing them—at some point in time.  That time period varies with how they are used and how heavily they are used.  From what I've read, solid state memory, either the kind that is in the form of cards we use in our cameras or as SSD drives we use in our computers have finite write/erase cycles or 'Program/Erase" cycles as they are officially called.  The number I see most is 100,000 program/erase cycles.  That is a huge number which most of us will never exceed even if we used our cards 10 years.  So why replace them?

Because solid state memory cards have a finite number of times that data can be written to  memory, read and then reformatted, the cards and drives are designed to write to all areas of the device rather than write, then overwrite to the same areas as is done with traditional rotating platter hard drives.  This spreading out of data equalizes and maximizes the number of write/erase cycles.  A nice benefit of this method of writing data to solid state devices is that if we accidentally erase or format our cards, we most likely can recover the data (image files) we lost because the card will not write directly over the old sectors until it has cycled through the entire card.  In fact, a few weeks after a road trip to New England a few years ago, I realized I couldn't find some of the images I knew I made.  The cards in my camera had been used since returning home and even formatted multiple times.  Yet, I was able to recover every one of the 'lost' images.  I was amazed!  

By the way, almost everywhere I read I found people say to reformat the cards in the camera but I did find some information (doggone it if I can locate it again!) from a card manufacturer's spokesman who said it really doesn't matter.  You do what you think best.

What about brands of cards?  I don't pay attention to anecdotal stories and Internet influencers who say only X brand is any good, never buy Y brand, etc.  Also, I don't pay attention to those who said they "had an X brand card and it failed and they are junk but since then have only bought Y brand and those cards have never failed.  Only buy Y brand."  A sample of one or two is meaningless.  Find some real research and make your decision based upon that or your camera manufacturer's recommendation for specific types and brands of cards.  I have bought many Sandisk and Lexar cards over the years and have never had a failure with either.  But, again, my sample is small and your experience may be different.

The other aspect about solid state memory that I didn't know is that they are still not recommended for long term storage of data.  It seems that storing data in solid state memory for the long term will eventually cause the data to break down and corrupt.  If you do choose to store data for the long term on solid state drives or memory cards what I have seen suggested is that you put your SSD or memory card into your computer (or camera) so it can access and read the memory to 'refresh' it.  Another recommendation is to copy your data from one card or SSD to another periodically to renew the files in memory.  What they say is don't leave your files on a card and put it away for many years.  It may not be accessible when you try to retrieve the data.  Again, I didn't know that.

So, how long do you keep a solid state memory card or SSD hard drive?  Based on the above, I've seen recommendations for replacing SD cards vary between a year for extremely heavy video use to 10 years for moderate stills photography use.  That 10 year recommendation comes from the SD Association itself.  I don't think there is one recommendation for all situations.  As I mentioned, SD cards generally have a finite lifespan of write/delete cycles.  I've not come across an official figure but I've seen 100,000 write/delete cycles published in several places.  From what I gather in reading various sites on the Internet, it is unlikely that any of us enthusiasts will exceed the write/delete cycles on our memory cards with normal use.  Also, I've seen written where it is NOT recommended you store data on memory cards for more than 3-5 years.  

As technology improves, I hear less and less about memory cards failing, corrupting data or not working as designed.  It may not be long before any problems with memory cards are solved forever.  Let's hope.

As for me, I take my solid state memory cards out of 'primary' use after about three years.  I feel comfortable with that time frame.  I've never had a memory card fail in any of my cameras nor computer SSD drives fail as well.  The new, replacement cards will become my 'primary' cards and the ones I just took out of 'primary' service become my secondary or backup cards.  If I have a memory card give me any trouble at all, I will destroy it.  To me, it is not worth taking a chance that my images will be lost. 

If there is a reader who has a specific site to recommend that has "official" numbers and recommendations, please comment.  I'm sure we all would appreciate knowing for sure.

How about your traditional computer backup hard drives?  How old are they?  When should you change them out?  Although I've never had an issue with my memory cards, I did have two Seagate 3TB internal hard drives fail.  Luckily, I am relentless about daily backing up my images and data to two different external hard drives and monthly to a third drive kept offsite.  Because of my OCD about backing up my data, nothing was lost.  

I change backup hard drives about every three to four years.  I look at the stats that BackBlaze puts up on their site as they keep track of the reliability of the thousands of hard drives they buy and have in constant use.  They have a chart that shows what percentage of each type of drive has failed.  You can see a chart here.  I take my cue mainly from their statistics when considering the purchase of a new hard drive.  I'll then wait for the brand, model and size hard drive I've chosen to be put on sale, then make my purchase.

Sometimes memory cards and hard drives are taken for granted and we largely ignore that they should periodically be replaced.  I think that is a mistake probably too many photographers make.  I consider myself pretty cautious when it comes to electronic devices.  In other words, I'm not too trustful of them.  I probably replace my cards and hard drives before it is necessary but I rather err on the side of not losing data rather than push that electronic envelope to the last minute.  Memory is relatively inexpensive.  It is a lot less expensive than to lose all my image files, important documents, memories and the other data that is important to me and resides on my computer.

Join me over at my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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