Wed Oct 28, 2009 11:37 pm
SanDisk provides a lifetime warranty for the Extreme III under normal use conditions. The memory controller in cards use wear leveling techniques to eliminate constant read/write operations in the same sectors, the result is a life expectancy in the million(s) of hours of use and is not caused by wearing out memory locations. Cards will still fail for a variety of reasons, but wear is pretty much out of the equation. I think the warranty pretty much sums up what we can expect.
The file system used in cameras *may* be different from the file system used in your camera, SanDisk recommends formating a memory card in the camera to ensure compatibility with the camera, this is more important with older cameras. Opinions vary on this point, but I've routinely formatted cards in cameras for years to minimize the potential for problems. Deleting photos from a card is OK, but I suggest you download your photos to your computer frequently and don't wait until the card fills up, and then format it in the camera.
The SanDisk website has some good information and their community forums have some Q&A that might be helpful.
One final point, if looking for new storage media, there are a lot of imitations on the market. The major manufacturers, like SanDisk, are the targets for cheap, junk copies. The eBay forums have information on imitations, one thread claims that up to 95% of the major brand cards on eBay are imitations. Although we may not buy these via eBay, it tells us something about the extent of the problem and the imitations show up in many other places.