spaghetti_western Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 recently I purchased a 1gb CF card for making RAW photos which are 12mb each, so about 84 to a card. however, in a typical day I might shoot and 5-15 images which I always upload that night or by next morning. but now I'm thinking that I will quickly wear down a portion of this card's memory whilst the bulk of it gets unused (or does memory space get randomly cycled in a CF card?). so my main question is this: would it be better to purchase a good/fast 256gb card to match my daily photo regimen and carry the 1gig card as backup and for when I shoot extensively all-day or on an extended trip? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phule Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 No. It will not "wear out" part of the card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob_bell Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 well a smaller card might be marginally faster. Your CF card is memory not hard drive space and it is allocated through electronics not a physical head writing the information so there should not be wear issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam_fields Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 It is extremely unlikely that you will run into this problem before the card becomes too small for you to practically use as anything besides jewelry, or perhaps bathroom tile. However, yes, CF cards (and all flash ram products) do wear out over time. This is typically only a problem when you're writing to them constantly (one notable example is if you have a linux-based pda and you use a flash card for your swap or tmp location - not a good idea). See this whitepaper from Sandisk for more details: http://www.sandisk.com/pdf/oem/WPaperWearLevelv1.0.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnb Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 To answer your question I need to know how you backup your photos. Ex. if you back up to CD/r or CD/rw then 512 would be much better and a full card can be burnt right to the CD. However like others said here you will not wear down a portion of your card, at least I have never seen that. PS. be proud of your photos and use your real name Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spaghetti_western Posted July 26, 2004 Author Share Posted July 26, 2004 like I say I upload to my HD first then back up the raw and tif files I keep to CDs. the CF raw files get expunged almost daily. from the responses maybe this is one more advantage of a CF card over a microdrive (not wearing down the same sectors)? thanks - sw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aardvarko Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 controllers in CompactFlash cards automagically rotate sector usage; you will not "wear out" a portion of it prematurely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msitaraman Posted September 13, 2004 Share Posted September 13, 2004 There is an area of applied mathematics known as queueing theory which answers these types of questions with exquisite precision. But common sense dictates that <br><p> 1) you buy a card no bigger than the most number of pictures you'd like to take without the nuisance of having to change cards, <br><p> 2) you buy a card big enough to hold as many pictures as you will take before you can get to your computer, portable harddisk, or the next CF card <br><p> 3) Of a speed that keeps your camera's buffer flushed under all the usual fast shooting situations you expect to encounter <br><p> and <br><p> 4) consistent with your budget. <br><p> At the prices of CF cards these days, your last para. makes a lot of sense. Do check out www.dealram.com before you buy.<br><p> An example may be found at:<br><p><a href=http://dealram.com/prices/19/1GB.htm>http://dealram.com/prices/19/1GB.html</a> <br><p> And no, you won't get uneven wear, for the reason stated above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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