Memory card failure - Lexar Professional

[srmoment]

I just had a Lexar Professional 64GB 150 MB/s 1000X SDXCII fail last night when I tried to take a moon shot.  My camera gave me a message about memory card failure.  I tried to format the card, but it still would not work.  I brought it home and tried it in my computer and the computer could not even read the drive, so the card was corrupted.  I had only used about 20% of the card and lost some cool shots I had taken.

I checked on the web and discovered user-reviews on various sites about some of these cards failing.

My camera is an Olympus mirrorless OMD-Mark2.

Luckily I bought the card at BestBuy (Canada) and they exchanged it for another one (which I hope won't fail).

Has anyone else been having trouble with memory cards failing?

Pat

[PeteB]

Pat
Last year I had a Lexar (8GB) card fail, but it was 4 years old and it served me well. I contacted the company and they would have replaced it but I chose to buy a larger capacity card.

Now ...  I am not sure how this announcement will make you feel

petapixel.com/2017/06/27/r-p-lexar-memory-cards/

Pete

[srmoment]

ackkkkk! Oh no! I guess it's over to Sandisk.
Really though, what does this mean for the future of memory cards?

[fotofrank]

Hi Pat,

I have at least 3 set of that Lexar version. I use a 32GB for RAW and a 16GB for JPG as my camera has two slots. These cards have been rotated in and out of my cameras since 2015 with no issues. I have a rule of thumb that I limit the images to no more then 800 on a card. I remember reading something about that and found that if iI exceed that the camera creates a second directory for file storage. Based on my file size, that number of images comes very close to filling it up.

I copy my images by using the SD slot on my computer/external drive and format in camera only.

Sorry to hear about the issue - good luck with the new one. Did you try to use the recovery software on the old card?

[bnk1953]

Pat - I've had one card fail me (I don't remember what brand). I was fortunate that my camera said it couldn't save to it via error notification. Also fortunate in that my camera (Nikon D7100) has two slots and it switched to the 2nd card. This failure and yours fills the prophecy - "It's not if a drive (even flash cards) will fail - but when!" This applies to all makes and brands. I used a recovery program that was able to go in and find the photos and save the photos from the bad card.

Frank - I never hear about limiting the images - but it makes sense. Even with hard drives - they say to NOT to fill it all the way up. I guess it's like everyone (and everything) needs some breathing room.

[srmoment]

Hey Frank, I gave up the card to BestBuy. I tried to download the recovery software with the replacement card, but the website listed is no longer supporting the cards/software.
....so I am now loading the RAW files from my new card to my computer via my camera software; but I am not deleting any files from my computer-to-card, nor within the camera. ...and like you, I have always left room on the memory cards I use up. Got some "red moon" (due to smoke) shots last night with my new card - so far, so good - no memory card failure message!
This is the first time this has happened to me and I've used numerous cards before; however, alarm bells went off when I read customer feedback regarding quite a few card failures - something to do with imitations coming out from China and flooding the market. (..no offense intended to China....)

[BuckSkin]

I may have one fail tomorrow, but we have completely filled numerous Transcend SD cards and have not missed a beat yet.

Before we started using Transcend (and before we got our DSLRs), we had various problems with images being corrupted to the point of some being completely unreadable; often, a warning would appear saying that an image file was "truncated" whatever that means.
We have numerous images where the top 2/3s of one picture will have the bottom third of a different picture, or the bottom portion of a picture will be offset maybe a third of it's width, having the bottom-right third of the picture located on the bottom-left and then the left-most of the image continue on across from there --- weird.

We were afraid it was maybe the camera causing these problems until I started using Transcend cards; we have not had a single corrupted image from that camera since using the Transcend cards.

I always thought that Sandisk made good stuff; I really like their flash-drives; however, the reviews on their SD cards are less than flattering.
When researching possible purchases, I have gotten in the habit of investigating the 1-star reviews and reading the reasons for the bad review; I have changed my mind on several purchases after studying the 1-star reviews.

[BuckSkin]

I may have one fail tomorrow, but we have completely filled numerous Transcend SD cards and have not missed a beat yet.

Before we started using Transcend (and before we got our DSLRs), we had various problems with images being corrupted to the point of some being completely unreadable; often, a warning would appear saying that an image file was "truncated" whatever that means.
We have numerous images where the top 2/3s of one picture will have the bottom third of a different picture, or the bottom portion of a picture will be offset maybe a third of it's width, having the bottom-right third of the picture located on the bottom-left and then the left-most of the image continue on across from there --- weird.

We were afraid it was maybe the camera causing these problems until I started using Transcend cards; we have not had a single corrupted image from that camera since using the Transcend cards.

I always thought that Sandisk made good stuff; I really like their flash-drives; however, the reviews on their SD cards are less than flattering.
When researching possible purchases, I have gotten in the habit of investigating the 1-star reviews and reading the reasons for the bad review; I have changed my mind on several purchases after studying the 1-star reviews.