One CF Card or Two

I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to get one 256MB card, or two 128MB cards.

I see merit in having two cards, that way if one gets damaged or fails you have another to use (and, if the card was full, you've only lost at most half of your photos).

I suppose the only reason I was thinking of getting the single 256MB card is that I'll save almost $20 (Viking is offering a $10 rebate on the 256MB cards, and Amazon's price for two 128s is slightly higher than one 256 to begin with).

Thoughts? Is it safer to have two cards, even if it costs a little bit more? Or are CFs so reliable that one is fine?

Over-analytically yours,
Brian
Canon Powershot G2
Mac G4 (933, 1GB RAM)
OS X (10.1.5)

Hi Brian,

Buy one 256MB card now, and another one in month or two later when the price drops. Than you have 2 cards as you wish, and 2 of them with higher capacity.

Tessa

Brian Pylant said:

I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to get one 256MB card,
or two 128MB cards.

I see merit in having two cards, that way if one gets damaged or
fails you have another to use (and, if the card was full, you've
only lost at most half of your photos).

I suppose the only reason I was thinking of getting the single
256MB card is that I'll save almost $20 (Viking is offering a $10
rebate on the 256MB cards, and Amazon's price for two 128s is
slightly higher than one 256 to begin with).

Thoughts? Is it safer to have two cards, even if it costs a little
bit more? Or are CFs so reliable that one is fine?

Over-analytically yours,
Brian
Canon Powershot G2
Mac G4 (933, 1GB RAM)
OS X (10.1.5)

Click to expand...

--
Tessa

Your answer is in the statement you yourself made: reliability. The odds of a CF failing are pretty low. Plus, actually, I think the odds of your 256 card failing are lower than a 128 - some claim that what can make a CF fail, is the constant putting in/ pulling out puts stress on the connectors. I don't know if that's legit, not having seen any studies to that effect, but it sounds plausible. So, with a 256 you face 50% of the risk you do with the 128, as you presumably will need to pull it in/out only half as much. Then there is the convenience factor - depending on how much shooting you do, I prefer to have greater capacity in my camera - that way I don't have to hassle as often with the CF in/out and downloading... I'll download half as often as I'd do with a 128 - again, convenience. Finally, as sometimes happens, you do pay more for 2 small than one big - so, why do it? I'd vote for getting the 256MB CF. YMMV. JMHO.

Roddy

Brian Pylant said:

I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to get one 256MB card,
or two 128MB cards.

I see merit in having two cards, that way if one gets damaged or
fails you have another to use (and, if the card was full, you've
only lost at most half of your photos).

I suppose the only reason I was thinking of getting the single
256MB card is that I'll save almost $20 (Viking is offering a $10
rebate on the 256MB cards, and Amazon's price for two 128s is
slightly higher than one 256 to begin with).

Thoughts? Is it safer to have two cards, even if it costs a little
bit more? Or are CFs so reliable that one is fine?

Over-analytically yours,
Brian
Canon Powershot G2
Mac G4 (933, 1GB RAM)
OS X (10.1.5)

Click to expand...

Hiya,

I would definitely go with 2 cards (Even 3). Depending on how much memory you believe you'll settle with, divide it by 2 and get that size. ie IF you think you'll be happy with 256MB for a while, then get 2x 128MB's.

There's a lot of speculation on the reliability of the connectors on both SM and CF. Years of PCMCIA "RW use" have show this connector to be one of the best engineered EVER. Some of my customers, literally go through 1,000's of PCMCIA devices in all sorts of terrible conditions and the LOW failure rate is unbeleivable. Evem SM can easily handle scratches and abuse extremely well. Just use a hard pencil eraser and its new.

These cards were DESIGNED to be used that way. There are many pro's for multiple cards, to me, I can't see any cons.
JKirk

Brian Pylant said:

Brian Pylant wrote:
I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to get one 256MB card,
or two 128MB cards.

I see merit in having two cards, that way if one gets damaged or
fails you have another to use (and, if the card was full, you've
only lost at most half of your photos).

I suppose the only reason I was thinking of getting the single
256MB card is that I'll save almost $20 (Viking is offering a $10
rebate on the 256MB cards, and Amazon's price for two 128s is
slightly higher than one 256 to begin with).

Thoughts? Is it safer to have two cards, even if it costs a little
bit more? Or are CFs so reliable that one is fine?

Over-analytically yours,
Brian
Canon Powershot G2
Mac G4 (933, 1GB RAM)
OS X (10.1.5)

Click to expand...

Brian Pylant said:

I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to get one 256MB card,
or two 128MB cards.
...

Click to expand...

you asked whether you should buy 2 cards or 1 card.
2 cards are always better than 1 card.
If you just have 1 card and it failed, you have no backup at all.

As for failure rates based on "number of times" you plug/unplug
the CF card, note that although 256MB card may have half the
chances of failure compared to a 128MB, the amount of data loss
of 256MB is twice that of 128MB. IOW, expected amount of loss
is the same for both ( at least in theory).

• submicron

What worries you more, the chance that you'll break a card or that you'll loose one while its out of the camera? Judging how loud some poeple on these forums yell when things go wrong I don't think that many cards actually break. If it was me I'd get the single card- and you'll fit an extra picture on there over what fits on a pair of 128.

Brian Pylant said:

I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to get one 256MB card,
or two 128MB cards.

I see merit in having two cards, that way if one gets damaged or
fails you have another to use (and, if the card was full, you've
only lost at most half of your photos).

I suppose the only reason I was thinking of getting the single
256MB card is that I'll save almost $20 (Viking is offering a $10
rebate on the 256MB cards, and Amazon's price for two 128s is
slightly higher than one 256 to begin with).

Thoughts? Is it safer to have two cards, even if it costs a little
bit more? Or are CFs so reliable that one is fine?

Over-analytically yours,
Brian
Canon Powershot G2
Mac G4 (933, 1GB RAM)
OS X (10.1.5)

Click to expand...

The actual nature of a flash card is something like this (bare with me as I am having a hard time putting the concept into words):

There are three main components in a flash card:

1. Controller - This the brain or CPU (if you would) of the flash card. The controller is what communicates to the device, it is what determines bad sectors on the card, etc.

2. Flash Chips - These are the data storage banks in the flash card. The higher the density of these chips the larger the flash card.

3. Casing - This is just the plastic "stuff" that is the shell for the controller and flash chips. This casing includes the connectors mentioned in this thread.

What I want to clarify is that the root design of a flash card makes it impossible to last forever. Why? Because each time you write (yes, write only) to a flash card it requires the "flipping" (if you would) of switches within the flash card to create the notorious ones and zeros (yes, like the movie The Matrix) of computer language. Whenever the flash cards need to change a bit from a one to a zero or a zero to a one that wears down the flash chip. It is a lot like grapping a copper wire and holding it in both hands level with one another then one of your hands to a 90 degree angle of the other back and forth, back and forth. Eventually the copper wire will get hot, begin to crack and eventually break.

Now what happens when a bit within your flash card does end up "breaking"? Well, this is when your controller comes in, hopefully your controller is good enough to recognize that one of the bits has failed and thus re-routes future writing to another bit instead. If your controller isn't smart enough to figure this out on its own, you will need to format the card in order to accomplish the task. Now if you lose one bit in a group of bytes you can still use the byte and you don't have a reduction in your card's capacity. However, if two bits in one byte fail, you will lose some storage capacity on your card. Probably not enough for you to notice the first few times it happens but eventually it will catch up with you.

So to accurately compare which card will fail first--the 128MB or the 256MB--you would have to assume that the controllers in both cards are completely equal, that the case will have no factor in causing the card to fail (i.e. wear on the connectors--which it would take a lot of wear on the connectors to make it fail), and that the quality of the flash chips used in the cards are exactly the same. If you assume all of the above, then yes, the 256MB card will last twice as long as the 128MB card (also assuming that the chips fail in linear order--which isn't accurate either). However, keep in mind that you will start with 256MB but millions of cycles later, after bit after bit after bit has failed, you may only have a card that can store data on 128MB of the 256MB you originally started with.

Today must be a Friday afternoon for me to spend this much time writing this post.

Please correct me if I am wrong, as this is how I have understood it, and how it has been explained to me by Viking's engineer a year or so a go.

P.S. For convenience reasons I would choose purchasing the 256MB over the 128MB. As a matter of fact, I use 512MB cards in my PDA and digital camera, but then again I work for a flash card manufacturer.

--
David Payne
eBusiness Channel Manager
Viking Components, Inc.
http://config.vikingcomponents.com/dpreview

Roddy Callums said:

Roddy

Brian Pylant said:

I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to get one 256MB card,
or two 128MB cards.

I see merit in having two cards, that way if one gets damaged or
fails you have another to use (and, if the card was full, you've
only lost at most half of your photos).

I suppose the only reason I was thinking of getting the single
256MB card is that I'll save almost $20 (Viking is offering a $10
rebate on the 256MB cards, and Amazon's price for two 128s is
slightly higher than one 256 to begin with).

Thoughts? Is it safer to have two cards, even if it costs a little
bit more? Or are CFs so reliable that one is fine?

Over-analytically yours,
Brian
Canon Powershot G2
Mac G4 (933, 1GB RAM)
OS X (10.1.5)

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Reliability aside, there's also the issue of taking photos in the heat of the moment. 256mb gives you the ability to keep shooting, perhaps right when the 128mb would nned to be changed and everything is really cool. I speak from experience - during the firworks show I had to change cards right before the finale! I realized that I wouldn't be able to change the cards in time, so I just say and let me eyes take in the sight (much red white and blue this year).
-S

Brian Pylant said:

I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to get one 256MB card,
or two 128MB cards.

I see merit in having two cards, that way if one gets damaged or
fails you have another to use (and, if the card was full, you've
only lost at most half of your photos).

I suppose the only reason I was thinking of getting the single
256MB card is that I'll save almost $20 (Viking is offering a $10
rebate on the 256MB cards, and Amazon's price for two 128s is
slightly higher than one 256 to begin with).

Thoughts? Is it safer to have two cards, even if it costs a little
bit more? Or are CFs so reliable that one is fine?

Over-analytically yours,
Brian
Canon Powershot G2
Mac G4 (933, 1GB RAM)
OS X (10.1.5)

Click to expand...

Yep, I think this about nails it - the 256 is the way to go. As the Viking guy pointed out (thanks Viking guy - I own several Viking cards - two 256, one 128, excellent experience so far!) - because of the greater storage, your 256 will be usable longer from a breakdown point of view. And as I made the argument before, the convenience factor is extremely important, not to mention the lost opportunities issue, and I'm glad others can give personal experiences to back that up. Then the cost issue etc. I guess more can always be said, but for now, it looks lke thiis thread can be put to rest: by a TKO 256 wins, undefeated champion in the red corner!

Roddy

i have a couple of 256mb cards and one of them failed.
completely unrecoverable. try to read it in camera, the camera
won't even turned on.

256mb is convenient but everyone probably agrees on the obvious rule:
a spare CF card is a must (need not be another 256/128mb, 16mb will do...)

TheVikingGuy said:

...
the same. If you assume all of the above, then yes, the 256MB
card will last twice as long as the 128MB card (also assuming that
the chips fail in linear order--which isn't accurate either).
...

Click to expand...

Hmm.. not quite right. If I take 1GB worth of pictures, i swap in/out the
256MB CF card 4 times. If I use the TWO 128MB cards, I swap in/out
EACH of the 128mb cards also 4 times. of course, the latter case
puts twice more stress on the camera's connectors.
anyways, i'm writing this just to kill some time on a friday afternoon...

Thanks everyone for your insight! (And extra thanks to VikingGuy for the tech info, very good to know!).

I think I'm going to go with the single 256 - although I will certainly be upset should the card fail (and of course, my luck dictates that when/if it does it will be nearly full when it goes!) I think it will provide more than ample room for the photography I do now, plus vacation shots and the like.

If I find that I'm frequently filling the card, or if I plan on taking a long trip away from my computer (I do not currently have a laptop), I'll look into an ImageTank or MindStor unit to dump off to each night (at which point the 256 may be overkill, but at the same time then I could easily shoot everything in RAW!).

Thanks again for the info everyone, I really appreciate it!

Brian

Wow, thanks VikingGuy for all that useful info! Hey do you know why the Viking CF prices at Amazon keep rising and falling? Demand and supply? Thanks!

You are welcome. As for the prices at Amazon fluctuating up and down, it has nothing to do with Viking. I do know why it is occurring, but I am not allowed to release the information. Hopefully everyone will understand my limitations.

--
David Payne
eBusiness Channel Manager
Viking Components, Inc.
http://config.vikingcomponents.com/dpreview

BenL said:

Wow, thanks VikingGuy for all that useful info! Hey do you know why
the Viking CF prices at Amazon keep rising and falling? Demand and
supply? Thanks!

Click to expand...