Memory Card Failures

[davidc]

I've seen the "striping" error you refer to, but not on my cards. My dad spent money to get no-name brand cards at higher capacity than you would expect for the money. Without fail, all of these introduced artefacts to the image regardless of camera. I have a feeling they were lower capactiy cards up-rated to show a higher capacity at the cost of errors. Since ditching the cheap cards he has never had a problem.

[Mike Farley]

I've seen the "striping" error you refer to, but not on my cards. My dad spent money to get no-name brand cards at higher capacity than you would expect for the money. Without fail, all of these introduced artefacts to the image regardless of camera. I have a feeling they were lower capactiy cards up-rated to show a higher capacity at the cost of errors. Since ditching the cheap cards he has never had a problem.

I have always bought branded cards, from reputable suppliers as there are fakes around, but usually those lower down the range. Mainly the failures have been Sandisk, but that is because it is the brand I mainly bought. I did once buy a high speed Duracell (yes, really) Compact Flash card because it was a lot less expensive than the Sandisk equivalent. It lasted about as long as the Sandisk card which has just failed and had a similar specification, but the warranty was much less comprehensive. It was described as "limited", as in it was not worth the bother of claiming. It offered a small amount of money calculate at "market rates" off a replacement. The Lexar Professional card which has just failed, was on its second use. In my experience, brand or price is no indicator of performance or reliability.