Poll request: compact flash failures

Zero failures:

Sandisk Standard
Sandisk Ultra II
Transcend 133x
Lexar Platinum 80x

1-Have you ever had a card failure? No
2-What size card resides in the camera? Sandisk E-IV 8Gb
3-Do you download with a card reader or the camera tethered? usually tethered
4-Do you delete all pics or reformat after downloading? Delete all
5-How many frames has the card seen? probably 5000

rahim wrote: Anyone else interested enough to justify a poll?

Why don't you hold a poll to see if a poll is justified.

IAC, I know of nobody who has had a CF failure - except myself with a brand new card that died after less than 100 shots.

I think if a card survives the first 1000 shots, it is essentially good for life (following the bathtub curve for electronics failures and the fact that long before we get near the end of life of the card, it will end up sitting in the bottom of the bag as an emergency backup as we will have moved on to larger-cap/faster cards within a couple/few years.)

Other reasons to avoid several cards are logistical: you are less likely to accidentally format a card that you haven't offloaded yet (which, by the way is recoverable if you have the s/w tool for it).

I do know some people who always prefer several smaller cards over fewer large cards. I'm just not in that camp.

1-Have you ever had a card failure?
    nope

2-What size card resides in the camera?
    -8GB Sandisk UltraII (main) -3GB Microdrive (backup) -2GB Sandisk UltraII (backup)

3-Do you download with a card reader or the camera tethered?
    integrated card reader 99% of the time

4-Do you delete all pics or reformat after downloading?
    delete

5-How many frames has the card seen?
    8gb - over 10 000; 3gb - probably around 1000-2000; 2gb - 1000-2000

1-Have you ever had a card failure? No. A trade show rep from a tier-1 maker suggested 80% of failures are due to the user taking the card out without logically / electronically ejecting it. This can put a controller in a transient state it does not on its own know how to recover from, and/or sets a "time bomb" when the related memory segment is accessed later.

2-What size card resides in the camera? Sandisk E-IV Ducatti edition (45MBps) 8Gb. I have 2 of these. Also Memory Stick 32GB. I tend to get the largest cards available after 1st price drop, then skip 2-3 years. It's almost time to trade up from the Ducati's to the faster 64GB crop of CF's. I do not believe in having more than 2 cards per camera other than for historical reason or special workflow requirements, simply because, as long as you deal with tier-1 manufacturers (Sandisk, Lexar, and such), the risk of loss of any given picture is far greater due to human error, physical loss or mishandling, than electronic failure.

3-Do you download with a card reader or the camera tethered? Reader

4-Do you delete all pics or reformat after downloading? Reformat

5-How many frames haVE the cardS seen? ~ 20000

I've never had a card fail.

I always reformat in the camera, always right before I use it (I have 2 cards I cycle through).

I like 4 GB cards because they are about equal to a DVD (4.7 GB) so I can back up one card to one DVD. Also If I use bigger cards, it's just too many photos in one place if I happen to take the card to the photo kiosk.

1-Have you ever had a card failure? No
2-What size card resides in the camera? Normally Sandisk UltraII 2Gb KM5D and Sandisk Extreme III 4Gb a200
3-Do you download with a card reader or the camera tethered? Card reader
4-Do you delete all pics or reformat after downloading? format
5-How many frames has the card seen? more than 20k for the 2G card and about 10 K for the other one.