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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

RG CF/SD database updated

Thanks for the heads-up, Nill.

I've generally used IBM or Hitachi Microdrives, with some Sandisk CF Type I cards. I've stayed away from Ridata, Transcend, etc., as I was concerned about their reliability (not based on experience, just wondering about what you give up to get a cheaper price).

Do you (or others) have much experience with Ridata (or other fairly cheap brand) cards? Getting 8gb in solid state for $169 is pretty astounding, considering where I started with this back in the D30 days!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Don Cohen said:
Thanks for the heads-up, Nill.

I've generally used IBM or Hitachi Microdrives, with some Sandisk CF Type I cards. I've stayed away from Ridata, Transcend, etc., as I was concerned about their reliability (not based on experience, just wondering about what you give up to get a cheaper price).

Do you (or others) have much experience with Ridata (or other fairly cheap brand) cards? Getting 8gb in solid state for $169 is pretty astounding, considering where I started with this back in the D30 days!

I must say that 8GB is a huge investment of trust in one card. I'd want to have an 8GB SD card in the other slot as backup.

A failure catalog of everyone's cards would be helpful.

Asher
 

Nill Toulme

New member
I have one Ridata card that has been reliable. (The only failures/glitches I've experienced have been with Transcend and Lexar.) I've always seen good reports on Ridata, can't remember ever having seen a report of a negative experience with one. (I've also had very good experience on multiple purchases from mydigitaldiscount and recommend them without reservation.)

As for the many eggs in a basket issue, my personal theory has long been that I'm most at risk, both for loss and for failure, when I'm changing cards, and that I minimize my risk by minimizing changes. If I can avoid ever changing cards in the field, all the better. In any event, 8GB is one average soccer match for me.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nill Toulme said:
I have one Ridata card that has been reliable. (The only failures/glitches I've experienced have been with Transcend and Lexar.) I've always seen good reports on Ridata, can't remember ever having seen a report of a negative experience with one. (I've also had very good experience on multiple purchases from mydigitaldiscount and recommend them without reservation.)

As for the many eggs in a basket issue, my personal theory has long been that I'm most at risk, both for loss and for failure, when I'm changing cards, and that I minimize my risk by minimizing changes. If I can avoid ever changing cards in the field, all the better. In any event, 8GB is one average soccer match for me.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

Nil, for the record, I have had no real issues with Sandisk

Sandisk Ultra II 2GB 2 cards, 1 year, no failures, one corruption (perhaps a premature opening of the card slot) solved by rescue software and reformatting in the camera.

Sandisk Ultra II 1GB 3 cards, 2 years, no failures

IBM-Hitachi 4GB Microdrive 2 years, no failures

Sandisk Ultra III 2GB 1 card, 2 months, no failures

Lexar 500MB 2 cards, 3 years, 3 failures but data all recovered.

I have the feeling that Sandisk for me has been more reliable than Lexar.

However, as RG points out, the series of the card indicated by the serial number on the edge, may show that similarly named cards are made in different places or some cards are just rebranded.

Certainly, $169 8GB on 1 Ridata card at 150X is an amazingly low price!

I wonder if there is a utility to test the cards by repeatedly loading and copying from the card then erasing for say 200 cycles and looking for errors.

Asher
 

Stan Jirman

New member
I own three SanDisk 8GB cards (one Ultra II and two Extreme III) and use them frequently; never had any problems. I am really not afraid of losing data due to card failure, as there are other factros that I'd worry about more.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Stan Jirman said:
I own three SanDisk 8GB cards (one Ultra II and two Extreme III) and use them frequently; never had any problems. I am really not afraid of losing data due to card failure, as there are other factros that I'd worry about more.

So Stan,

If you were to buy further 8GB cards would you chose the Ridata or spend more for the Sandisk Ultra II or Extreme III and if so why?
 
Don Cohen said:
Do you (or others) have much experience with Ridata (or other fairly cheap brand) cards? Getting 8gb in solid state for $169 is pretty astounding, considering where I started with this back in the D30 days!

I have had good luck (read first tier quality) with Ritek/Ridata CDR and DVD+R media. Way better than with Sony, Memorex, and etecetera big name brands. In short, it is a name I associate with quality storage media.

That said, I have not used their CF cards (but have been considering it). Newegg has similar pricing on the card and is a e-tailer I can recommend from experience (similar to B&H but different merchandise).

my $0.02,

Sean
 
Asher Kelman said:
Nil, for the record, I have had no real issues with Sandisk

...
I have had issues with Sandisk.

192 MB Sandisk (5 years use before being gifted) - 3 or 4 write errors in that period

1 GB Sandisk (1 week) - Total failure, gently shake it and the memory chips rattled about.

1 GB Sandisk ( 1 month) - No errors.

1 GB Generic (free) (6 months) - 3 or 4 write errors corrupting RAW files.

128 MB Generic (1.5 years use before gifting) - No errors.

2 256 MB Lexar cars (9 months) - No errors.
Asher Kelman said:
I wonder if there is a utility to test the cards by repeatedly loading and copying from the card then erasing for say 200 cycles and looking for errors.
Asher

Bash shell (use http://www.cygwin.com/ on Windows) and some free routines will do it easily enough. Simply copy some files, compare their MD5, SHA1, ... hash value on disk and on CF card or do a direct compare and loop 200 times while redirecting output to a file. While this is not a GUI tool, the task at hand is relatively simple on a computer.

some thoughts, :eek:)

Sean
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Stan Jirman said:
I am not quite sure what you mean by that. 200 cycles of what?
Stan,

I was wondering whether there was a Mac utility which would allow a routine of testing cycles of loading, reading and reformatting of a CF card to test for errors in say 200 or more cycles.

Thanks,

Asher
 

Stan Jirman

New member
Ah. Well, for reliability testing you can use DiskUtility (the app with UI) or diskutil (the command line version) to write random stuff onto any device as many times as you want, and it will report any errors. It won't be sensible data, but it will cover the reliability part.

As for performance, I have found it hard (if not impossible) to get a card reader that will hit the limits of a modern day card. Even the fastest USB2 card reader that I could get my hands on was slower than the currently fastest FW card reader (Lexar Pro). See my article on Luminous Landscape for more on that test. The newly announced SanDisk Extreme FW card reader may be even faster (I'll get one as soon as they are available), but that one reads only CF cards and not SD. To the best of my knowledge there isn't a FW SD card reader on the market.

So bottom line, I don't think real performance testing of SD cards can be done on a computer, because USB2 is the limiting factor (and there's empirical proof for that claim).
 
Just adding my flash card data points

Felt the need to add my flash card data points.
Currently using 1DsMkII, but prior to Nov 2004 had 10D as primary (day it came out) and D60 before.

CF cards
4x 2Gb Sandisk UII all (1.5 years) - no problems
1x 1GB Lexar 40x Pro (2 years) - no problems except it is slow
1x 1GB Sandisk 1GB standard (2.5 years) - no problems except really slow

The following are only rarely used except in older cameras, but I keep the cards for "forgot the portable drive times":
2x Lexar 256MB 12x CF cards (4+ years) - one was washed and one (maybe same) ended up in river. It had problems for about 2 weeks and then started working fine again - other then that no problems.
1xMemorex 256MB CF card (4+ years) - no problems
1xIBM 340MB micro-drive (5+ years) - no problems (rarely used - kept in loaner camera (D60)) does still work
1x Kodak 16MB (5+ years) - no problems - I use it frequently to transfer small web files between computers.

SD cards
1X Sandisk 1GB Extreme III SD card (1.5 years) - only one possible problem and I still lean towards a camera/card interaction problem that is preventable having to do with going over 9999 images. I just don't let the camera go there and have never had a repeat.
1X Sandisk 256MB Ultra II SD card (2 years) - no problems
1X Sandisk 128MB SD card - no problems, although never used with any cameras

Things I have heard from multiple sources,
I have a good impression of Ridata and a mixed verus Transcend.

Just my experience,
 
After reading this and having it in mind, I picked up an RiData 150X 4GB card and it seems to works fine after the first 8 GB of data (6 shooting sessions). It is without question faster than my 1 GB cards (Sandisk standard and generic). I will report back on this in a month or two.
 
Nill Toulme said:
I have one Ridata card that has been reliable. http://www.toulme.net

Based on this thread I picked up a 4 GB Ridata card from newegg.com and it has been reliable for the first 100 GB or so. It is also much faster than my regular speed cards and its speed expands my burst with the XT to 4 shots and sometimes with single shots, rather than motor drive, 8 shots. It also greatly reduces time between bursts. With the smaller XT files I get about 450-550 shots per 4 GB card.

Anyway, this is a so far positive unsolicited report on the card based on experience for those who find this thread via searching.

enjoy,

Sean
 

Nill Toulme

New member
So far so good also with the 8GB CF's and 4GB SD's I've been using in each of my 1DMkII's for the past several weeks. The only time I have to open the camera in the field anymore is when I shoot more than one game — and that's shooting RAW, about 100 images per GB.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net
 
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