SDHC card with integrated backup

NAC

Golden Member
Dec 30, 2000
1,105
11
81
So I had a SDHC memory card go bad a few months ago. I was just walking around, taking pictures, and at one point it stopped working. After troubleshooting, I determined that the controller in the card must have gone bad, and the only way to recover the data would be to take out the memory and access it with a different controller. In other words – expensive. I wrote off the pictures, I guess I'll never see them.

I record RAW and JPEG 20 megapixel photos – I really don't need more than 32 gig cards. Heck, I almost never need 16 gigs of space. What I do want, however, is redundancy.

Now, some cameras allow you to save onto two cards simultaneously. That's great if you have it, but my cameras don't allow that. And I don't know of any compact cameras which allow for it.

I know they can't create anything foolproof – nothing is 100%. But I'd be happy to pay more for a card with as much built in redundancy as possible. So save each file twice. Have two controllers on the card. Whatever else. Maybe setup the card to always record to two places, and a physical switch to change where you want to read from.

Does such a card exist? Any thoughts on the feasibility of this idea?
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
86
No, and it won't exist, and shouldn't exist. It's a single point of failure, due to the need for a shared package and controller. Supporting multiple cards in the camera is the right way to do it in the camera.

You need to regularly back up your data to other storage. Period.