# How long is the oldest SD card with original data on it here?



## Ilovemycam (Dec 19, 2012)

My cards are only a couple of years old. Will they keep data indefinitely?

How long is the oldest SD card with original data on it here?


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## John27 (Dec 19, 2012)

This depends on a LOT of variables.

SD Cards generally will have about 100,000 program and erase cycles, with some of the better cards maybe having a million or more.  How often you use the card, how much data you transfer each time, etc. will 'eat up' these cycles.  It's kind of like shutter life in a camera.  When Canon tells you that X model camera can handle 150,000 shutter cycles, it doesn't mean that the 150,000th is guaraunteed to fail, it just means that you should be able to expect at least that much performance out of it.

Generally, an SD card will be outgrown before it's worn out.  I have some SD cards that are a few years old but they are 512MB, 1GB, etc.  Not particularly useful in a 15MP DSLR shooting RAW.  So they work, but they've been replaced by (currently) Sandisk 8GB cards.

If you are worried, replace them.  SD memory is cheap.  Cheaper brands will wear out much faster, generally speaking.  (Not always though).  I've always heard the SD cards are most reliable after about 2 weeks (if it's going to fail early, it'll fail in that windows) and before about 2 years.  That's probably a good average, although again, it depends on SO many variables.  I have an old old 64MB (got GB!) SD card sitting in a drawer, and just for grins I checked it, it works.  But I don't even recall WHAT I used it for, much less how often I use it.  It will probably outlast my Sandisk 8GB cards that I use all the time, when it sits in a drawer.

Again, if it concerns you, replace them, you don't want to lose your pictures!  I tend to lean towards the name brands of flash memory too, they tend to be more reliable.  If a couple years is two, then some would say you are venturing into unreliable territory.  FWIW I tend to use several smaller cards over a couple larger cards, in my mind, should I have a total failure of a card before I copy the images to my PC and subsequent backup drive, I'll lose less images.  

I don't know if any of that was helpful, but unfortunately, to my knowledge this isn't a finite issue with an easy answer that works for everyone.  You may have heard about optical media degrading, well, that's due to sunlight, humidity, etc.  They physically degrade over time.  This doesn't necessarily happen in properly stored SD cards (aka don't store it in your back window of your car in pheonix in July), so their life is more dependent on how and how often they are used.

Also note that most of your name brand cards will have 'load leveling' chips in them that will make sure that everything is read and written 'evenly', this leads to more reliability because there isn't a 'hot spot' where one particular area is getting written on over and over again.  But, in the end, you really AREN'T likely to use up those cycles.  Flash memory IS considered more reliable, but we've all had cards fail.  I've only lost two cards in recent memory.  One still technically works, but the plastic casing came apart.  It broke taking it out of the camera, I was able to get the data off, works fine but I of course won't be using it any longer.  I have another one that I used to use in an mp3 player that has failed completely.  Compare that to a couple dozen working-fine SD cards.  But that's me, I'm not you!


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## sm4him (Dec 19, 2012)

I have a 16 MB sd card (yes, MB--not GB) that still works. It's totally pointless, but it works.  I think it came with my very first Canon Powershot, and that's been QUITE some time ago.

I have quite a few 1- and 2-gb cards that still work and they are several years old.

Then I've got a 32gb card that I bought the day after Thanksgiving that's already failed. Another one, 16gb, that was less than a year old that failed. (Both of the failed cards were Amazon Basics brand--coincidence? You decide. Me, I'm sticking to other brands from here out...)


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## BrianV (Dec 19, 2012)

SD cards are not that old, but basically the same technology used in non-volatile Flash memory going back about 20 years to PCMCIA "Flashdisk" cards. I have a 110MByte and a couple of others from the late 1990s that still work. CF cards- 32MByte card, 12+ years. Oldest SD card- 1GByte, 5 or 6 years old? I've had one 256MByte CF card develop "bad sectors", bought new with the Nikon D1x about 10 years ago.


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## skieur (Dec 19, 2012)

Ilovemycam said:


> My cards are only a couple of years old. Will they keep data indefinitely?
> 
> How long is the oldest SD card with original data on it here?



I have some from 1995.

skieur


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## bratkinson (Dec 20, 2012)

Obviously, size limitations of older memory cards could be a real problem. Especially shooting with a 23mp full frame camera like the 5D3 that eats up 33-35 meg of memory card/RAM/disk space for every RAW picture.

Is using a no longer used smaller, slower card a reasonable choice for archival purposes? I would have to say no. This is especially true of the un-reliability of some non-name brands.  Yes, their physical size is nice, but the risk of failing seems so much greater than a CD failing, or redundant CDs failing, or 2 HD copies failing.


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## Garbz (Dec 20, 2012)

Ilovemycam said:


> My cards are only a couple of years old. Will they keep data indefinitely?
> 
> How long is the oldest SD card with original data on it here?



Cards fail to write, rarely if ever do they fail to read unless they are physically damaged.

Flash is a technology used to program microcontrollers. If my 15 year old hifi receiver still works with the remote, there's no reason why a 15 year old memory card shouldn't either.


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## Ilovemycam (Dec 20, 2012)

Thanks for the feedback!


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## John27 (Dec 20, 2012)

Garbz said:


> Ilovemycam said:
> 
> 
> > My cards are only a couple of years old. Will they keep data indefinitely?
> ...



Both of the failures I've had (off brand / store brand cheapies) failed to both read and write.  They just 'disappeared', won't mount, won't anything.  No physical damage, just quit working.  Hence I learned my lesson on cheap cards!  (Sounds like a similar experience for sm4him).


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## Garbz (Dec 21, 2012)

Error recovery my good man. A card that is not recoverable is practically unheard of. But a failed write to the file allocation table will render it unreadable to the computer, unless you use specialised software of course.


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