Can Micro SD Cards Go Bad?

[Jack Keck]

I use my phone through bluetooth speakers, headphones and even my sound bars for casual listening. I play either my Sirius app or my mp3 files from my SD card. Lately, I have been getting weird noises that I can't really describe when I listen to the mp3 files. I replaced the phone, tried a different app, and every speaker I have. I think I've narrowed the problem to the card, hence my question. Can files on these little cards be corrupted?

 

[Pio1980]

Short answer, yes, they can become irretrievably corrupted.

Long answer, you can tell they are going bad when they start hanging around pool halls wearing pinchback suits, smoking 'taylor mades', and using expressions like "swell", and "so's your old man".

 

[Spitfirejoe]

Yep. I don't know the details about how/why the actual files get corrupted, but the cards have limited life spans. Just do a quick google search on your post title - LOTS of results.

 

[Kreshna]

The pictures stored in my phone's SD card go black gradually.

 

[Pio1980]

Cloud storage backup is prudent.

 

[mfrench]

I have a 16gb SD card that started out being fine with recording at 2496 (I do realize the diff's between micro-SD and SD). Now, two years later, I get write error warnings at 2496, and the recording will stop. I'm in between musical seasons right now, but I need to replace the card before september, when the classical concert season gets back underway.
Yes, they will fail.

 

[Lavane]

Short answer, yes, they can become irretrievably corrupted.

Long answer, you can tell they are going bad when they start hanging around pool halls pinchback suits, smoking 'taylor mades', and using expressions like "swell", and "so's your old man".

Thanks, my morning coffee just came out of my nose.

 

[Ds2000]

I really preferred the CF cards, I have an older one with no issues.
Admittedly, they're too big for phones, but as a medium, they've been shown to be more stable in the long run. Data from numerous photography journals.

 

[Quadman2]

I've often wondered about the no name brand cards that are out there. To date, staying with the well known ones they have given no grief...yet. (fingers crossed)

I was told once by one tech that the sticks are better for longevity.

Q

 

[DaveVoorhis]

... I play either my Sirius app or my mp3 files from my SD card. ... Can files on these little cards be corrupted?

Yes. In my experience, SD cards are failure-prone. I've had them die on multiple occasions in cameras and Raspberry Pi computers.

 

[Blue Shadow]

Short answer, yes, they can become irretrievably corrupted.

Long answer, you can tell they are going bad when they start hanging around pool halls wearing pinchback suits, smoking 'taylor mades', and using expressions like "swell", and "so's your old man".

Heard that last week on Throwback Thursday.

 

[Jack Keck]

Cloud storage backup is prudent.

In that case, I guess loading all of that music to Google Play wasn't the waste of time I thought it was.

Thanks to all of you for your responses.

 

[jobrewer1983]

Yes, and depending on how often you write and remove to the disc it can cause them to fail.

They will out last a standard HHD, but read/write can cause failure. Among other things, but that is the main cause of SD Failure.

Samsung Evo cards are really good.

Good Luck!

 

[Pio1980]

Thanks, my morning coffee just came out of my nose.

O. T.
BTW, the sadder but wiser olive oil in the yellow top jug at Sam's Club is just as good as the less experienced costlier stuff. Just sayin'.

 

[Imanoldee]

The SD cards can go bad just like any other digital storage type.
You need to back up your digital stuff, and then back up the back up.

 

[lini]

JK: It doesn't necessarily have to be a defect of the card itself - i.e. could just as well be that just the file system has been corrupted for whatever reason (for example, I once had a HDD in my notebook that became corrupted by a few defective memory cells in one of the SO-DIMMs...). So, if you're curious, you could always try a few things - like for example, depending on the format, perform a file system and file check (e.g. via chkdsk) for more thorough failure diagnosis, or/and reformat and refill the card and see, whether it works again...

jb: Whether flash cards outlast HDDs still has to turn out, I'd say. In my experience even very old HDDs (the oldest ones of mine I still have date back to the early 90s) often still work no problemo. Checking some of these can really become rather cumbersome in the meantime, though, especially because I haven't got some form of SCSI controller for any of my newer computers anymore - so for checking the old SCSI HDDs I also have to reanimate one of my old computers, which often is a lot more problematic now...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[Jack Keck]

The SD cards can go bad just like any other digital storage type.
You need to back up your digital stuff, and then back up the back up.

Wise words! That's one of the reasons I keep the CDs and LPs that I rip to anything digital. One of the other ways I preserved my digital files was on Google Play. I wondered why I did it. I even thought that I might be wasting my time doing this. My phone seems to play the files on GP just fine. I guess I had good reason to use it and certainly was not wasting time.

Thanks again, everyone.

 

[CT Jim]

Interesting. So is it use that may be considered wearing the card out?

I do have a 128 sd Samsung I belive which I picked up to use with a Benji Flac player which only comes with 8gb of storage. Almost all Flac player have the capability to be augmented using one or two sd cards to expand storage.
I get doing the backup thing, but if a card has an expected life maybe buying a player with a larger SS drive makes sense for longevity?

 

[Pio1980]

Interesting. So is it use that may be considered wearing the card out?

I do have a 128 sd Samsung I belive which I picked up to use with a Benji Flac player which only comes with 8gb of storage. Almost all Flac player have the capability to be augmented using one or two sd cards to expand storage.
I get doing the backup thing, but if a card has an expected life maybe buying a player with a larger SS drive makes sense for longevity?

You use less total space less often with more space !ess used, so theoretically, a larger card used to less than full capacity could last longer, theoretically.

 

[CT Jim]

I like that because I went for the big one even though a 16gb ipod I have I only used 3-4gb of space. The assumption on my part is this flac player is the last one I set up now that I'm getting ready to add vinyl in a flac files