The Evolution of My Photo Storage Journey

Remember when SD cards were "tiny" one-gigabyte things? Those days feel like ancient history now! Back then, I'd religiously transfer photos to my computer using whatever clunky software came with my camera, delete everything from the card, and start fresh. Simple times.

As cameras evolved with bigger sensors and RAW formats, everything changed. I learned that constantly writing and deleting files degrades flash memory over time – certain parts get marked as unreliable. Who knew? Now I format my cards monthly instead of deleting individual files, which is apparently much better for the card's memory.

These days, I keep about a month's worth of photos on my 64GB card before reformating. It's like having a built-in backup system. If something goes wrong with my main computer storage, I can always retrieve that month's shots from the card in the camera.

The hardware side has been a comedy of errors. Every built-in card reader in any computer I've owned eventually died, and those cheap USB readers weren't any better. I finally invested in a decent dual USB-A/USB-C reader that's been rock solid for two years.

Cloud Storage? Still figuring out that one. When travelling and you need them most, access can be tediously slow or not reliable. Monthly data storage costs can soon skyrocket as your photo collection grows.

Proof reading and summary assisted by Claude Sonnet 4 (AI)

Not IF but WHEN

Aren't bad things supposed to come in threes? I'm just experiencing fours, in terms of storage.

First, over a couple of weeks I saw warning from my android phone about occasional difficulty writing to the micro SD card, and then last week a warning to back it up followed by a note that it was unmounted. Fortunately when I took the card out of the phone I could read all its contents BUT I could not write to the card or even reformat it. Ok new card required (they are not all that expensive) and I had been doing monthly updates to my photo library. So nothing lost, at worst it might have been a few recent photos.

SO HAVE YOU BACKED UP THOSE PHOTOS ON YOUR PHONE RECENTLY? NO?

DO IT NOW.

I'm not going to go into detail but there are dozens of ways to get your photos off your phone, into the cloud and/or onto a computer Backup or Archive. Just expect your phone to be stolen, disappear, fall in the water or otherwise stop. If you have anything of personal value on it don't hesitate backup now!

Second was a strange corruption of a file on the memory card in my camera. At first I suspected the little USB card reader (which every now and the refuses to register on the device reading it). However swapping cards showed the problems was just a specific file on one SD card. Or the problem could be in the camera (hope not). Again the bigger faster SD cards I now use are more expensive but replacing it was an obvious tactic. Don't just leave your big SD cards to fill up. You can fit fair number of photos on 64GB and/or 128GB cards but then you loose a lot of photos if something goes wrong.

INGEST THOSE PHOTOS FOR YOUR SD CARD ONTO YOUR COMPUTER OR CLOUD REGULARLY!

DO IT NOW.

Third, I pulled out my backup portable hard drives (I have two set of 1TB & 2TB disks that I alternate one set in my office and one set offsite) in preparation for the monthly update and rotation. Unfortunately the one that was due to take the months incremental files was completed dead, No even a glimmer of life or flicker of the power on light. Again nothing lost, I still had the Master copy on my computer and the off site copy. However now replacement of the hard disk is starting to get expensive.

ARE YOU FOLLOWING THE 3-2-1 BACKUP STRATEGY. DO YOU HAVE AN OFF-SITE BACKUP?

DO IT NOW

The final insult came in the form of a BIOS message as my ailing studio computer attempts to start up. The cost of and capacity of traditional spinning platter magnetic hard disks have improved a lot, prices for the same capacity are significantly lower and the capacity has increased. However now there is the added complication and difficulty of opening up the computer finding the right replacement and the time to restore all the data, programs and get things back to normal. The cost of paying someone else to do this will be frightening.

RESTORING A COMPUTER THAT HAS CRASHED CAN BE A LENGTHY AND TEDIOUS PROCESS. IS YOUR DATA ROUTINELY BACKED UP? DO YOU HAVE A RECOVERY BACKUP?

MAKE THAT RECOVERY BACKUP AND LEARN HOW TO USE IT

Take it from me, these things will happened. 

The Card Full Episode

Since using Photo Mechanic to load my photos from the SD cards onto my little HP spectre, I’ve changed over to not immediately deleting the photos from the card. Even though I have set Photo Mechanic to make a second copy as it uploads. Instead I leave the card for a few days till it fills to about 2/3rd. I have five 16GB cards so I can last a couple of weeks before I need to clean the cards, by which time I have plenty of opportunity the photos safely backed up to one of two 1TB portable drives (in the Red cases) that I carry as I travel.

I store my SD cards in the little blue case , and have adopted the process of turning them one way when they are empty and reversing them the another when they are full enough. Well that’s the theory.

Last night I took a lot of photos of the sunset, two cruise ship leaving port, and the CARD FULL message just as some fireworks started. I grabbed card case and swapped the cards but I was a bit late to get the best of the fireworks, This seemed to go well Until I got back to the hotel room. I put the full card in the reader and it was EMPTY! Worse the new card from the camera also reported it was empty. I got out a third card and it worked fine. Hmmm! I feared the worse and downloaded Recuva, (a disk file recovery tool I have used before and trust). A couple of very long deep recovery later only turned up old photos and some corrupted files. Rather than panic I figure I should just leave the cards and pack them away and not reuse them as I was travelling.

Next morning I got out my camera and got a fresh card from my card wallet and as soon as I turned the camera on there was the CARD FULL message again. My first reaction was that the camera must be corrupted the cards. Arrrh!

Then it struck me there was a simple explanation, In the dark last night I got the direction of the cards mixed up. The full card was always safe in the blue case and I was trying to red cards I had already cleaned. So I didn’t loose my great sunset shots, and I will pay more attention which way by cards are facing.

Look after those SD cards

SD cards have become ubiquitous with digital cameras and microSD cards with smart phones. They are relatively cheap and generally robust. However they can be damaged and can very occasionally fail. My experience up till last week was that failure does happen but was very unlikely. I had one bad experience several years ago where a card came apart in my camera and jammed the card socket. With patients, a magnifying glass, a torch and the tweezers from a swiss army knife I did get all the pieces of plastic and gold foil contacts out of the card slot and no damaged was done. Luckily!

Another card last year just gave errors on two test photos when I loaded them. Picasa loaded in the photos ok but Lightroom reported corrupt RAW files. Surprising the paired jpegs were fine. At first I suspected the camera but I took some more photos using an older SD card and no problems. This was a cheaper brand card and I could see no obvious damage. I just  reformatted the card in my camera, and it worked fine. But I did buy a replacement card the next day. It is serving out its retirement in a relative’s photo frame and apparently enjoying life and behaving.

Two days in a row this week I had two cards develop problems with the little plastic slider on the side that provides write protection. I don’t normally touch this slider. The first problem was I managed to push the slider up inside the card and on top the contacts. I felt the card being blocked when I inserted into into the card reader. I could read the photos the card stuck again as I tried to removed it from the reader. I carefully applied more pressure and the card came out. Close inspection showed the slider had moved and was jammed (see picture above). The SD was immediately thrown out. Unfortunately the next day, same camera another same brand SD card, read the photos ok but when I put it back in the camera it reported the write protection lock was on and when I checked the card the write protect tab was missing. I carefully checked both the camera slot and card reader but that little bit of plastic was totally missing. Another card for the bin. Three new cards from a different manufacturer purchased.

By this stage I was worried either the camera or the card reader was damaging the cards. So an intensive investigation of cards and cameras and card readers followed, including testing the write protection sliders. No problems found and I breathed a long sigh of relief.

So What might have causes the failures?

Then I realised I had changed how I was using the cards on my recent trips. I was using a new card each day and not clearing it off. After being loaded I would put it back in an elasticized pocket in the camera bag. There were only three such pockets and six cards so there was doubling up and I remember a few cards slipped out and floated around in a mesh compartment which also house a few other accessories. I now suspect that is where the little plastic slide switches got damaged.

So I have gone back to my old practice of re-using the same card in the same camera and clearing off the photos after they are loaded. Only a singe SD card is stored in each pocket, as spares in the field. Any other spare cards are kept in those older little slide boxes, that SD cards used to come in before that where just bubble packed. They are robust but kept back at base with my backup USB drive, not floating around in my camera bag.

Before I try the rotating card process again I’m need to find a suitable protective wallet for the cards and take better care of them.