fairly large amount of SD cards acquired over the years-- best way tostore them?

Simple question, but I can't find the answer. I have accummulated a
fairly large amount of SD cards over the years, some with their original
plastic casing, but most not. What's the best way to store both these
and microSD cards? Thank you.

ABS wrote:
Simple question, but I can't find the answer. I have accummulated a fairly large amount
of SD cards over the years, some with their original plastic casing, but most not. What's
the best way to store both these and microSD cards? Thank you.

I store my electronic chip stuff in anti-static plastic bags like the ones
that hdd's and components com in.

ABS on 2016/12/11 wrote:

Simple question, but I can't find the answer. I have accummulated a
fairly large amount of SD cards over the years, some with their original
plastic casing, but most not. What's the best way to store both these
and microSD cards? Thank you.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=is...card%20storage

ABS wrote:
Simple question, but I can't find the answer. I have accummulated a
fairly large amount of SD cards over the years, some with their original
plastic casing, but most not. What's the best way to store both these
and microSD cards? Thank you.

Original plastic casing is antistatic.
It should be suitable for storage.

Expected lifetime after doing your last write
cycle, is 10 years. That's a rough estimate
of the guaranteed life of the data. We've had
some old NOR BIOS flash chips with bit rot
after 10 years. And those were EEPROM type
without erasure windows on them. The charge
is stored on an insulated gate, representing
the data value stored.

Note that modern flash chips are TLC. And some
of the worst of those show parametric shift
after only three months. The data still
reads out of the chip OK, but the error
corrector is running flat out. (Every
sector read operation needs error correction.)
It's hard to say whether this generation
of technology would be worthy of a
"ten year life" rating. While some marketing
fluff might make such a claim, I really
wonder whether this will be true. I've had
two flash sticks based on TLC die on me,
whereas I have a stick with SLC that has
been heavily used, that continues to run fine.

Just don't expect too much from this media.
Take precautions. Make copies in some
other way. Even a hard drive copy is
better than nothing, because you can move
the stuff easily from one hard drive to
another.

If they have special formatting, copy them
with "dd.exe".

If they actually use the "Secure" feature of
"Secure Digital", I have no idea how to handle
that, or what the procedures might be.

Paul

Wolf K wrote:
On 2016-12-11 18:25, Paul wrote:
[...]
Note that modern flash chips are TLC. And some
of the worst of those show parametric shift
after only three months.
[...]

Ooops. I've been storing full SD cards from our cameras. I guess I'd
better burn some DVDs instead.

Thanks for the heads up.


This is general advice for any storage type.

Nothing is really "impressively reliable".

A backup copy never hurts.

*******

If you want to experiment with DVD media, you
can try these. The technology is only as reliable
as the stability of polycarbonate plastic (for which
I can't find a good article). The substrate may be
good, but they are still plastic on the outside.
These are also available in BluRay, with a high
price to match the capacity provided.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA3V633M9823

The media cost, makes the drive to burn them look cheap.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136276

If it wasn't for the M-Disc, you'd probably end up
with a product like this. The "gold" disc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817130028

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....HL._SX355_.jpg

Paul

Per Wolf K:
Ooops. I've been storing full SD cards from our cameras. I guess I'd
better burn some DVDs instead.

Don't expect *too* much from DVDs. I'm no expert, but I do know from
experience that they also fail over time. Probably depends on the type
of DVD.

The only viable strategy that I have come up with is a quantity of hard
disk drives (I had six until recently) to which I back up my stuff daily
- rotating the drives between storage locations on a monthly basis.

Maybe Greater Minds Than Mine can comment....


--
Pete Cresswell

On 12/11/2016 10:50 PM, Paul wrote:

[snip]

Ooops. I've been storing full SD cards from our cameras. I guess I'd
better burn some DVDs instead.

Thanks for the heads up.


This is general advice for any storage type.

Nothing is really "impressively reliable".

A backup copy never hurts.

Also, if it's your only copy, you don't have a backup.

[snip]

On Sun, 11 Dec 2016 15:30:15 -0500
ABS wrote:

Simple question, but I can't find the answer. I have accummulated a
fairly large amount of SD cards over the years, some with their
original plastic casing, but most not. What's the best way to store
both these and microSD cards? Thank you.

Stick them on a cabinet shelf
or
Put them in a zip lock bag.

Both a non issue

In message , Paul
writes:
ABS wrote:
Simple question, but I can't find the answer. I have accummulated a
fairly large amount of SD cards over the years, some with their
original plastic casing, but most not. What's the best way to store
both these and microSD cards? Thank you.

7dayshop in the UK, and I'm sure others if you're not, sell a range of
storage wallets/cases/etc., for a selection of shapes (though I don't
remember whether that includes the micro ones; if you can't find any
case specifically for those, put them in adapters, which cost pennies -
often come with the micro cards). Have a look at 7dayshop - I think
they're .co.uk (I'm not online ATM or I'd find you a selection) - for a
few ideas.

Original plastic casing is antistatic.
It should be suitable for storage.

I just assumed you were asking about storing the cards to prevent damage
to the cards; however, ...

Expected lifetime after doing your last write
cycle, is 10 years. That's a rough estimate
[much good - as always! - snipped]

.... if you're asking about storing them _with data on_ that you want to
keep, then I'd agree with Paul and others, don't rely on them (or
_anything_; of the various media I've tried, I'd say hard discs are the
most reliable, but I've of course had those fail too [though so far in
only one or two cases suddenly]).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

what - recession? Up north? What we gonna have - more nowt?
(News Quiz 2013-7-26)

On 12/11/2016 03:30 PM, ABS wrote:
Simple question, but I can't find the answer. I have accummulated a
fairly large amount of SD cards over the years, some with their original
plastic casing, but most not. What's the best way to store both these
and microSD cards? Thank you.

Thanks to all for the suggestions. The reason I asked the question was
because I had about 30 of SD and microSD cards stored in a plastic zip
loc over the last couple of years. With 4 of the cards, Win kept asking
if I wanted to reformat them and I had to use EaseUs to get the data
back, and I was happy it found almost all of the data from each card.

Since I had spare antistatic bags from a couple of no longer working
hard drives, I just placed the cards into those for now.

I just wanted to mention that I have had more SD cards and USB thumb
drives fail on me over the last 7 years than any other data storage
method. I still have some hard drives going back to 2000 that power up
and are willing to work with data (although I long since took everything
off of those "large" 8 GB hard drives).

ABS

In message , ABS writes:
[]
I just wanted to mention that I have had more SD cards and USB thumb
drives fail on me over the last 7 years than any other data storage
method. I still have some hard drives going back to 2000 that power up
and are willing to work with data (although I long since took
everything off of those "large" 8 GB hard drives).

ABS

I too have the feeling that these forms of solid-state storage are the
least reliable. However, it is possible that you (and I) have an
excessively bad impression of them because we have bought more of them
than any other sort.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

So, Heresy be damned (well, it would be, wouldn't it?).
Radio Times 24-30 July 2010 (page 24)

On 12/14/2016 05:18 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , ABS writes:
[]
I just wanted to mention that I have had more SD cards and USB thumb
drives fail on me over the last 7 years than any other data storage
method. I still have some hard drives going back to 2000 that power
up and are willing to work with data (although I long since took
everything off of those "large" 8 GB hard drives).

ABS

I too have the feeling that these forms of solid-state storage are the
least reliable. However, it is possible that you (and I) have an
excessively bad impression of them because we have bought more of them
than any other sort.

Yeah, I'm sitting here wondering how well (or poorly) this laptop's SSD
is going to hold up a year from now. I recently switched its HD over to
SSD. Quite a lot faster now, but cautious. I make regular back ups
just in case.

For a while, when HDs and data were a lot smaller, I used DVD and even
CD for back up. I could get away with a couple of DL DVD's and be good,
but that quickly ended beyond say the era of 50 GB hd. Now I see that
someone, Sony maybe, has developed a 1 TB storage disc. If that ever
comes down to consumer prices, I may go back to that for back up. For
now, I just try and use several, standard HDs.

On 12/14/2016 04:37 PM, ABS wrote:

[snip]

For a while, when HDs and data were a lot smaller, I used DVD and even
CD for back up. I could get away with a couple of DL DVD's and be good,
but that quickly ended beyond say the era of 50 GB hd. Now I see that
someone, Sony maybe, has developed a 1 TB storage disc. If that ever
comes down to consumer prices, I may go back to that for back up. For
now, I just try and use several, standard HDs.

With my first HD (30MB) and Windows 3.1, I backed up to floppies. I had
a BAT file that cleared the archive bits and used XCOPY repeatedly until
it had copied everything. It wouldn't work (endless loop) if any file
was larger than 1.44MB, but I didn't have any of those then.

--
4 days until the winter celebration (Sunday December 25, 2016 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not
worth knowing." -- H.L Mencken

On 12/21/2016 5:24 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 12/14/2016 04:37 PM, ABS wrote:

[snip]

For a while, when HDs and data were a lot smaller, I used DVD and even
CD for back up. I could get away with a couple of DL DVD's and be good,
but that quickly ended beyond say the era of 50 GB hd. Now I see that
someone, Sony maybe, has developed a 1 TB storage disc. If that ever
comes down to consumer prices, I may go back to that for back up. For
now, I just try and use several, standard HDs.

With my first HD (30MB) and Windows 3.1, I backed up to floppies. I had
a BAT file that cleared the archive bits and used XCOPY repeatedly until
it had copied everything. It wouldn't work (endless loop) if any file
was larger than 1.44MB, but I didn't have any of those then.

Great story! I'm trying to give away a box of floppies on CL and nobody
wants them, lol. I have Word 6!

Mike S wrote:
On 12/21/2016 5:24 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 12/14/2016 04:37 PM, ABS wrote:

[snip]

For a while, when HDs and data were a lot smaller, I used DVD and even
CD for back up. I could get away with a couple of DL DVD's and be good,
but that quickly ended beyond say the era of 50 GB hd. Now I see that
someone, Sony maybe, has developed a 1 TB storage disc. If that ever
comes down to consumer prices, I may go back to that for back up. For
now, I just try and use several, standard HDs.

With my first HD (30MB) and Windows 3.1, I backed up to floppies. I had
a BAT file that cleared the archive bits and used XCOPY repeatedly until
it had copied everything. It wouldn't work (endless loop) if any file
was larger than 1.44MB, but I didn't have any of those then.

Great story! I'm trying to give away a box of floppies on CL and nobody
wants them, lol. I have Word 6!

I still have my 3.5" floppy disks. I just discovered my old Firehawk
Thexder 2 that came with both 3.5" and 5.25" sizes from my 286 days! :O
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