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I have read from this link https://www.sdcard.org/consumers/faq/#servicelife about SD card's service life that with normal usage it can reached to 10 years or more? Wow, this is truly amazing! I know digital or surveillance cameras used SD card to store captured images and pictures but what if it is used as storage drive to boot and run an operating system (for example, a Linux or FreeBSD on SoC machine) and have data store in it, then what are the do's and dont's to achieve such life span?

ordinary_guy
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2 Answers2

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SD cards are designed as expendable. So nobody expect from them to have such a long life.

To make the last longer try to avoid intensive write operations because flash memories have limited amount of write cycles (10k to 100k average).
To keep information reliable for long time use the 3-2-1 rule, 3 copies, 2 different medias, 1 copy off-site.

spikey_richie
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Romeo Ninov
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sdcard.org FAQ says:

What is the service life of an SD memory card?

This depends on how your product in manufactured. SD standards-based memory cards, like most semiconductor cards, store information in flash memory. The current technology along with normal usage typically gives the card a lifespan of 10 years or more, allowing consumers to upgrade their devices for many years and reduce consumer electronic waste.

Nevertheless, I get the feeling that this text relates more to the data-retention period of SD cards, rather than their lifetime when in heavy use.

There are two things to do :

  1. Get the highest-quality (and costly) SD card you can afford
  2. Be prepared for bad luck and failure before the 10 years are up.
harrymc
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