My camera's SD card failed! Here’s how to prevent it from happening to you – or at least lessen the damage if it does…

I’m currently working on a review of the crown jewel in OM System’s extensive lens line-up, the M.Zuiko 150-400mm F4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO. One of the places where I decided to test the lens was WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre. So, the night before, I cleaned the camera and optics, packed my camera bag, charged my batteries and formatted my memory cards. Heck, I even went so far as to separate my batteries from the OM System OM-1 Mark II to prevent any drainage (not that they would be left in there nearly long enough for that to happen). My point is, the preparation was meticulous.

When I got to Slimbridge, I popped a battery in the camera, switched it on and received an error message for memory card slot 1. Occasionally, I’ll end up talking to a photographer who will proudly announce that they’ve never experienced any trouble with SD cards, and I can’t help but wonder, have you only taken, like, 10 photos in your entire life or something!?

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had an SD card fail on me. Thank goodness this time it was at the beginning of the shoot. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than inserting a memory card into your computer and finding out that the files are corrupt. Maybe you’re sitting there thinking, Mike, what the heck are you doing with your memory cards? You mean you don’t just chuck them loose in the bottom of your daily commute rucksack, jostling against your MacBook Pro and condensation-covered water bottle?

Seriously, though, my memory cards live in one of those little hard-shell cases you can find on Amazon, but I’m beginning to think my colleague, Sebastian Oakley, has a point: “I NEVER remove a memory card from a camera.”

I remember when Nikon launched its first full-frame mirrorless cameras, the Nikon Z6 and Nikon Z7, and they only had a single XQD card slot. I’m not surprised plenty of wedding photographers were like: Um, how about no… Suffice to say, Nikon fixed that oversight when it released the Nikon Z6 II and Nikon Z7 II and has been committed to providing back-up storage for every full-frame mirrorless since, going so far as to include a secondary microSD card slot in both the ultra-slim Nikon Zf and Nikon ZR.

XQD and CFExpress cards are a different story. I still wouldn’t want to rely on a single card for a professional shoot, but they are more reliable than SD cards. Something I used to do was renew my SD cards every now and again and use the older ones as backups or for casual shoots. But the problem we have nowadays is that even SD cards are becoming very expensive.

How to safeguard against an SD card failure

So, what can you do to increase your chances of an SD card failure? For starters, invest in decent SD cards. I will admit that my most recent card to fail was a Sandisk card, but I own more Sandisk cards than any other brand, and they get the most use. Most of the cards I’ve had fail in the past have been very old or from less-reliable brands.

As such, Sandisk is still one of the best memory card brands out there, alongside other gold-tier manufacturers such as Lexar and Samsung. Any card has the ability to fail, and with most known brands, you should be in fairly good hands. I’m telling you to steer clear of SD cards with random brand names that might come free with a cheap camera bag or tripod that you’ve bought on Amazon. Some camera manufacturers even list the memory card brands that they rate for their cameras, so check that out too.

Secondly, look after your SD cards. I’ve already mentioned this, but chucking them loose in a camera bag to rattle around isn’t going to help their longevity. Keep them inside your camera or safely stored in a hardshell case. In addition, don’t jam them into your camera or card reader. The contacts are the most exposed part of the card, so do everything you can to mitigate damaging them.

It goes without saying that if you have a dual-card slot, you can use the secondary slot as a backup. And for single-slot cameras, you have two choices. Invest in a nice big card with room to store all of your images on and take Seb’s advice and only retrieve images using a USB cable so that the card never leaves the camera. Or, invest in multiple smaller SD cards, so you’re forced to frequently change your card when shooting. While I suppose this increases the likelihood of experiencing a failure – or loss – if the worst happens, you will lose a smaller portion of your images.

And finally, back up your images as soon as you can. Don’t leave it until the next day; relieve your mind of that nagging feeling that you really should back up your images by backing them up. That said, do wait for a suitable moment. Standing right next to a river in a downpour is not the time to get your card reader out.

If all else fails, maybe carry around a four-leaf clover and never step on a crack.

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For more memory card horror stories: My dog ate my memory card... but the images survived! If you're thinking you should probably back up your work, here are the best external hard drives for photographers. And if you want the memory card embodiment of Captain Scarlet, check out the Lexar ARMOR GOLD SDXC UHS-II memory card review.