[Mxsmanic]

Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually experienced a memory card
failure due to simple wear and tear?

I know that flash memory allows for only a limited number of write cycles, but
I'm curious as to how often this limit has actually affected people in real
life.

I've never experienced a memory-card failure of any kind [knocking on wood],
and hopefully I never will, although a simple inability to write to the card
would probably be less of a disaster than an inability to read what's written
(apparently wear and tear only impedes writing, but reading still works). I
always have several cards with me at least, and I try to cycle through them to
even out the wear and tear. I've been lucky so far.

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 13:09:35 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually experienced a memory card
failure due to simple wear and tear?

I know that flash memory allows for only a limited number of write cycles, but
I'm curious as to how often this limit has actually affected people in real
life.

I've never experienced a memory-card failure of any kind [knocking on wood],
and hopefully I never will, although a simple inability to write to the card
would probably be less of a disaster than an inability to read what's written
(apparently wear and tear only impedes writing, but reading still works). I
always have several cards with me at least, and I try to cycle through them to
even out the wear and tear. I've been lucky so far.

I've certainly had older cards fail. But I have no way of knowing if
that was wear and tear (too many write cycles) or an actual mid-life
failure. The big problem with cards is that they are actually failing
all the time. More and more memory blocks get excluded from use, but
you don't know about it because of a kind of RAID system internal to
the card. Failure, when it finally comes, tends to be reasonably
catastrophic.

d

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/21/2012 7:09 AM, Mxsmanic wrote:
Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually experienced a memory card
failure due to simple wear and tear?

I know that flash memory allows for only a limited number of write cycles, but
I'm curious as to how often this limit has actually affected people in real
life.

I see this was cross-posted to a photo web site. Those are
the people who are experiencing, or at least have
experienced memory card failure. They write a whole lot more
files than we do.

An all too common failure mode is that someone will
accidentally put the card in upside down, force it in, and
damage the connector inside the device.



I've never experienced a memory-card failure of any kind [knocking on wood],
and hopefully I never will, although a simple inability to write to the card
would probably be less of a disaster than an inability to read what's written
(apparently wear and tear only impedes writing, but reading still works). I
always have several cards with me at least, and I try to cycle through them to
even out the wear and tear. I've been lucky so far.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[William Sommerwerck]

I once irreparably damaged a card by removing it prematurely. But I've never
had a card fail under normal use.

Flash memory includes "leveling" software that randomizes the locations data
are written to. This evens-out the gradual damage as information is erased
and overwritten.

Flash memory is good for /at least/ several thousand write cycles. * A
photographer would have to take hundreds of thousands of photographs before
even beginning to approach that limit. The shutter would fail well-before
that point.

As usual, you have it backwards. Writing is indeed the problem. If each
block of data were immediately read back and compared with what it's
supposed to be, bad blocks could be marked (as used to be done on hard
drives). But I don't think any flash memory works that way.

* The most-advanced technology permits hundreds of thousands of cycles, if
not more.

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/21/2012 9:10 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:

Flash memory is good for /at least/ several thousand write cycles. * A
photographer would have to take hundreds of thousands of photographs before even beginning to approach that limit. The
shutter would fail well-before
that point.

I don't know how good your stats are, but I can tell you
that digital photographers do indeed take hundreds of
thousands of pictures, and nobody "files" the memory cards
like they did with negatives and slides. They're used like
fixed memory for the most part.

The most-advanced technology permits hundreds of thousands of cycles, if
not more.

I think that may be true, but put that in practical terms,
please. We never really knew how many playings a DAT was
good for until some of them became unplayable, and we forgot
about the technology for the most part before we figured out
why they quit playing. I have 50 year old tapes and 100 year
old records that still play. Deteriorate? Sure, but I expect
that. And I doubt that I've played any of them 100,000
times. I won't live that long. But it only takes 1/30 of a
second to take a picture, so photographers take a lot of
them, most of which they never see again.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[William Sommerwerck]

Flash memory is good for /at least/ several thousand
write cycles. * A photographer would have to take
hundreds of thousands of photographs before even
beginning to approach that limit. The shutter would
fail well-before that point.

I don't know how good your stats are, but I can tell you
that digital photographers do indeed take hundreds of
thousands of pictures...

Shutter are spec'd for a life cycle of 100,000 to 300,000 (or so) shots.
//When// a particular shuter fails, of course, varies.

About 15 years ago a TIME photographer stopped by to take my photo for TIME
Digital. The shutter in one of his not-top-of-the-line Nikons failed, and he
had to switch.

[Mxsmanic]

Mike Rivers writes:

I see this was cross-posted to a photo web site. Those are
the people who are experiencing, or at least have
experienced memory card failure. They write a whole lot more
files than we do.

Yes, but I figured that people working in audio are probably writing a lot of
memory cards these days, and perhaps in a different way that would expose
different failure modes.

[None]

"MrsManiac" wrote in message
...
Mike Rivers writes:

I see this was cross-posted to a photo web site.

Yes, but I figured that people working in audio are probably writing a lot
of
memory cards these days, and perhaps in a different way that would expose
different failure modes.

Or you figured you'd troll a group you have a history of vandalizing.
Which is the real reason? Try Occam's razor.

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/21/2012 1:17 PM, None wrote:

Or you figured you'd troll a group you have a history of
vandalizing.
Which is the real reason? Try Occam's razor.

Please explain yourself. Troll? Group? Vandalizing? I only
talk down to trolls and idiots.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/21/2012 11:36 AM, Mxsmanic wrote:

Yes, but I figured that people working in audio are probably writing a lot of
memory cards these days, and perhaps in a different way that would expose
different failure modes.

A lot of people are indeed writing to flash memory cards
these days - just about everyone with a handheld digital
recorder. But they tend to get the largest capacity card
that their recorder can handle and just continue to use it.
generally copying recordings to a hard drive (the bigger the
better) and, when the card gets full, delete what's there
and continue to use it.

But I think the reality is that it's highly unlikely that a
card today will fail because of excess writing. There's so
much storage capacity, and a relatively small percentage of
users record at high sample rates and resolution with these
recorders. So the memory card really doesn't get all that
much use.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Arny Krueger]

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
news
Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually experienced a memory card
failure due to simple wear and tear?

You are talking about a moving target because the life of flash memory
continues to increase. It was on the order of thousands of erase/write
operations a few years back, and now it is on the order of 100'000s.

According to Wikipedia:

a.. SLC NAND flash is typically rated at about 100k cycles (Samsung
OneNAND KFW4G16Q2M)
b.. MLC NAND flash used to be rated at about 5-10k cycles (Samsung
K9G8G08U0M) but is now typically 1k - 3k cycles
c.. TLC NAND flash is typically rated at about 100-500 cycles
d.. SLC floating-gate NOR flash has typical endurance rating of 100k to 1M
cycles (Numonyx M58BW 100k; Spansion S29CD016J 1,000k)
e.. MLC floating-gate NOR flash has typical endurance rating of 100k
cycles (Numonyx J3 flash)


I know that flash memory allows for only a limited number of write cycles,
but
I'm curious as to how often this limit has actually affected people in
real
life.

I currently have 4 flash-based SSDs in service. None are being hit
particularly hard. IOW they are not parts of highly active file servers.
They are typically in computers that only receive a few hours of use per
week.

I've never experienced a memory-card failure of any kind [knocking on
wood],

Lucky you! But, all of the failures I've seen were of conventional system
RAM.

and hopefully I never will, although a simple inability to write to the
card
would probably be less of a disaster than an inability to read what's
written
(apparently wear and tear only impedes writing, but reading still works).
I
always have several cards with me at least, and I try to cycle through
them to
even out the wear and tear. I've been lucky so far.

IME writing, while time consuming is not the big exposure.

The trick of the day often relates to reading the data later on. Memory
write cycles seems to have nothing to do with it. It's all about the USB
interfaces.

I just had a client who needed to restore some backups after a total loss
type hard drive crash. His USB flash drive had about 9 GB of data. It
blue-screened the laptop its data needed to be restored to after a few
minutes of loading. Its reliability for just reading was poor on 3 other
desktop systems. The drive disconnected itself from the system several times
during attempts at restoring it, and on one machine that normally works
well, it would just sit in a loop attaching, crashing, and re-attaching. On
another older laptop the whole 9 GB flowed to its hard drive (a flash-based
SSD) just fine in one clean shot. I moved the data to the target machine
over a wireless LAN without incident.

YMMV.

I just ha

[Chuck[_10_]]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:46:21 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:


"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
news
Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually experienced a memory card
failure due to simple wear and tear?

You are talking about a moving target because the life of flash memory
continues to increase. It was on the order of thousands of erase/write
operations a few years back, and now it is on the order of 100'000s.

According to Wikipedia:

a.. SLC NAND flash is typically rated at about 100k cycles (Samsung
OneNAND KFW4G16Q2M)
b.. MLC NAND flash used to be rated at about 5-10k cycles (Samsung
K9G8G08U0M) but is now typically 1k - 3k cycles
c.. TLC NAND flash is typically rated at about 100-500 cycles
d.. SLC floating-gate NOR flash has typical endurance rating of 100k to 1M
cycles (Numonyx M58BW 100k; Spansion S29CD016J 1,000k)
e.. MLC floating-gate NOR flash has typical endurance rating of 100k
cycles (Numonyx J3 flash)


I know that flash memory allows for only a limited number of write cycles,
but
I'm curious as to how often this limit has actually affected people in
real
life.

I currently have 4 flash-based SSDs in service. None are being hit
particularly hard. IOW they are not parts of highly active file servers.
They are typically in computers that only receive a few hours of use per
week.

I've never experienced a memory-card failure of any kind [knocking on
wood],

Lucky you! But, all of the failures I've seen were of conventional system
RAM.

and hopefully I never will, although a simple inability to write to the
card
would probably be less of a disaster than an inability to read what's
written
(apparently wear and tear only impedes writing, but reading still works).
I
always have several cards with me at least, and I try to cycle through
them to
even out the wear and tear. I've been lucky so far.

IME writing, while time consuming is not the big exposure.

The trick of the day often relates to reading the data later on. Memory
write cycles seems to have nothing to do with it. It's all about the USB
interfaces.

I just had a client who needed to restore some backups after a total loss
type hard drive crash. His USB flash drive had about 9 GB of data. It
blue-screened the laptop its data needed to be restored to after a few
minutes of loading. Its reliability for just reading was poor on 3 other
desktop systems. The drive disconnected itself from the system several times
during attempts at restoring it, and on one machine that normally works
well, it would just sit in a loop attaching, crashing, and re-attaching. On
another older laptop the whole 9 GB flowed to its hard drive (a flash-based
SSD) just fine in one clean shot. I moved the data to the target machine
over a wireless LAN without incident.

YMMV.

I just ha



I've seen the interface chip in thumb drives short and smoke. Chuck

[Mike Rivers]

Hmmmm . . . What is it that we were talking about here? My
memory seems to have failed me.

Can I get a new card for my brain?

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Steve King]

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
news
Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually experienced a memory card
failure due to simple wear and tear?

You are talking about a moving target because the life of flash memory
continues to increase. It was on the order of thousands of erase/write
operations a few years back, and now it is on the order of 100'000s.

According to Wikipedia:

a.. SLC NAND flash is typically rated at about 100k cycles (Samsung
OneNAND KFW4G16Q2M)
b.. MLC NAND flash used to be rated at about 5-10k cycles (Samsung
K9G8G08U0M) but is now typically 1k - 3k cycles
c.. TLC NAND flash is typically rated at about 100-500 cycles
d.. SLC floating-gate NOR flash has typical endurance rating of 100k to
1M cycles (Numonyx M58BW 100k; Spansion S29CD016J 1,000k)
e.. MLC floating-gate NOR flash has typical endurance rating of 100k
cycles (Numonyx J3 flash)


I know that flash memory allows for only a limited number of write
cycles, but
I'm curious as to how often this limit has actually affected people in
real
life.

I currently have 4 flash-based SSDs in service. None are being hit
particularly hard. IOW they are not parts of highly active file servers.
They are typically in computers that only receive a few hours of use per
week.

I've never experienced a memory-card failure of any kind [knocking on
wood],

Lucky you! But, all of the failures I've seen were of conventional system
RAM.

and hopefully I never will, although a simple inability to write to the
card
would probably be less of a disaster than an inability to read what's
written
(apparently wear and tear only impedes writing, but reading still works).
I
always have several cards with me at least, and I try to cycle through
them to
even out the wear and tear. I've been lucky so far.

IME writing, while time consuming is not the big exposure.

The trick of the day often relates to reading the data later on. Memory
write cycles seems to have nothing to do with it. It's all about the USB
interfaces.

I just had a client who needed to restore some backups after a total loss
type hard drive crash. His USB flash drive had about 9 GB of data. It
blue-screened the laptop its data needed to be restored to after a few
minutes of loading. Its reliability for just reading was poor on 3 other
desktop systems. The drive disconnected itself from the system several
times during attempts at restoring it, and on one machine that normally
works well, it would just sit in a loop attaching, crashing, and
re-attaching. On another older laptop the whole 9 GB flowed to its hard
drive (a flash-based SSD) just fine in one clean shot. I moved the data
to the target machine over a wireless LAN without incident.

YMMV.

I just ha

Would be interesting to know your client's blood pressure swings as the
recovery attempts/failures went on;-) This is a good story to remind me
that if a USB Flash drive fails to read on one machine to keep trying.

Steve King

[David Ruether[_3_]]

"Steve King" wrote in message
news:
:
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

I just had a client who needed to restore some backups after a total loss
type hard drive crash. His USB flash drive had about 9 GB of data. It
blue-screened the laptop its data needed to be restored to after a few
minutes of loading. Its reliability for just reading was poor on 3 other
desktop systems. The drive disconnected itself from the system several
times during attempts at restoring it, and on one machine that normally
works well, it would just sit in a loop attaching, crashing, and
re-attaching. On another older laptop the whole 9 GB flowed to its hard
drive (a flash-based SSD) just fine in one clean shot. I moved the data
to the target machine over a wireless LAN without incident.

YMMV.

Would be interesting to know your client's blood pressure swings as the
recovery attempts/failures went on;-) This is a good story to remind me
that if a USB Flash drive fails to read on one machine to keep trying.

Steve King

I just dumped and reloaded Vegas Pro 11, and before I ran some
tests that had caused Pro to crash ever more frequently in the
past, I thought to remove the USB 4-gig thumb-drive from the
computer before reloading the program. The thumb drive may not
have been the cause of the problems, but without it and with
the new installation, Vegas Pro 11 passed my tests and did not
crash. 8^)
--DR

[j]

On 7/24/2012 8:16 AM, David Ruether wrote:


"Steve King" wrote in message news:
:
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

I just had a client who needed to restore some backups after a total
loss
type hard drive crash. His USB flash drive had about 9 GB of data. It
blue-screened the laptop its data needed to be restored to after a few
minutes of loading. Its reliability for just reading was poor on 3
other
desktop systems. The drive disconnected itself from the system several
times during attempts at restoring it, and on one machine that
normally
works well, it would just sit in a loop attaching, crashing, and
re-attaching. On another older laptop the whole 9 GB flowed to its
hard
drive (a flash-based SSD) just fine in one clean shot. I moved the
data
to the target machine over a wireless LAN without incident.

YMMV.

Would be interesting to know your client's blood pressure swings as the
recovery attempts/failures went on;-) This is a good story to remind me
that if a USB Flash drive fails to read on one machine to keep trying.

Steve King

I just dumped and reloaded Vegas Pro 11, and before I ran some
tests that had caused Pro to crash ever more frequently in the
past, I thought to remove the USB 4-gig thumb-drive from the
computer before reloading the program. The thumb drive may not
have been the cause of the problems, but without it and with
the new installation, Vegas Pro 11 passed my tests and did not
crash. 8^)


I've never had any trouble with flash memory cards, whether CF or SD.

Thumb drives are a completely different story. And my friends concur. A
cheap thumb drive will cause you grief.

Jeff

--DR

[David Ruether[_3_]]

"j" wrote in message
:
On 7/24/2012 8:16 AM, David Ruether wrote:

I just dumped and reloaded Vegas Pro 11, and before I ran some
tests that had caused Pro to crash ever more frequently in the
past, I thought to remove the USB 4-gig thumb-drive from the
computer before reloading the program. The thumb drive may not
have been the cause of the problems, but without it and with
the new installation, Vegas Pro 11 passed my tests and did not
crash. 8^)
--DR

I've never had any trouble with flash memory cards, whether CF or SD.

Thumb drives are a completely different story. And my friends concur. A
cheap thumb drive will cause you grief.

Jeff

Hey, this thread has become ridiculous, so I have kept only the
above two entries (;-}) and have been dumping all the others,
including 93 more(!!!) just this morning... YIKES!;-)
--DR

[Luxey]

I had a problem or two, but never due wear.

Once Nokia N82 rendered card unusable, when it crashed during large file download.
Asus eee PC, 7" first generation, constantly writes to SD(and HC) with errors. However, no problems with USB flash.

Uppon installing any version of Win, first thing to do is to enable viewing of hidden and system files, aswell as extensions.

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

snip

--
Les Cargill

[hank alrich]

Jeff Henig wrote:

Les Cargill wrote:
snip

--
Les Cargill

Should I start a religious debate to distract from this religious debate?

If memory serves, prolly not. g Even if crossposting insults star of
David posting and a lot more.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/walkinaymusic
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri