Dual Card Slots - Oversized Slot 2?

Started 11 months ago | Polls thread
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Sam Bennett
Sam Bennett Veteran Member • Posts: 5,180
Dual Card Slots - Oversized Slot 2?

This is a question for people who are using their dual card slots to somehow "mirror" what they're shooting. One of the things I hit (again) on my trip to the BVIs was that I shoot just enough to fill a 64GB card over the course of a week. I culled photos throughout the trip (especially when shooting focus-stacked macros which can fill up a card really quickly) but that only deletes the files from card I'm reviewing the photos on, not the card I'm mirroring to. On this past trip, this resulted in a situation where my "Slot 2" card was full, but the Slot 1 card had plenty of space on it, which got me thinking: Should I have a bigger card in Slot 2? For example, if I shoot more than 64GB in a week of traveling, I could have a 64GB in Slot 1, and a 128GB in Slot 2 - with the extraneous shots being thrown away eventually, assuming there's no issues with the card in Slot 1.

So, I'm curious how people using their dual card slots to "solve" this problem (my assumption here is that people are using the Dual Same or Dual Independent "down" methodologies that stop shooting once one call fills to minimize confusion). I see a few "strategies" to address this...

  • Same sized cards, same files on both - This likely what most people do, since most of the time it works fine if you're in a habit of downloading photos to a computer on a regular basis
  • Shoot using a different quality in one slot, purely as a backup - This strategy mitigates the issue by conserving space on one card. For example, using JPEG+RAW on the main card, but either only RAW on one card (saving about 30% of space) or JPEG (saving about 70% of space).
  • Larger card in one of the slots, but same quality - This mostly avoids the problem by allowing that second card to simply accommodate more photos in hopes that
  • Larger card, different quality on each - This is a hybrid approach that maximizes the space on the larger card by using a file that takes up less space
  • I don't use my second slot as a mirror - No idea what I'm talking about, or don't care about mirroring your photos? Click this one. 

Of course, curious to hear people's rationale as well!

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POLL
Same sized cards, same files on both
19.0% 8  votes
Shoot using a different quality in one slot, purely as a backup
14.3% 6  votes
Larger card in one of the slots, but same quality
4.8% 2  votes
Larger card, different quality on each
9.5% 4  votes
I don't use my second slot as a mirror
52.4% 22  votes
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