NEW Sandisk Ultra 16gb 30mbps Buffer Error

G

Gene Sung

Veteran
I just got 2 new Sandisk Ultra 16gb 30mbps (class 4) from Amazon and they're giving me buffer errors right off the bat.

I formatted both cards right away and one card starting giving me buffer errors quickly and shut off recording about 3 times.

The 2nd card gave me a buffer warning, but didn't stop recording and this happened once.

I've used the Ultra 8gb and also the Extreme 3 (which became the Ultras, and are Class 4) and have NEVER had a single buffer error (and I got the cards over a year ago). I wonder if it's just the 16gb that have problems.

Anyone use the 16gb Ultras and have problems? Sandisks have been great, so this really threw me for a loop?

Is there another way I should format my cards that might fix the problem?
 
One thing I noticed that was kind of strange with these Sandisk ultra 16gb, is that worked right away without me having to format the card. I seemed to remember all my other cards when I put them in for the first time, they would say something like: "This card needs to be formatted."
 
!!!!!!!!!

I too purchased a SanDisk card from Amazon and it gives me buffering. It's a class 6 Extreme. I'm hoping this card is not a "fake". One time it was giving me a few "automatically stopped recording" errors, but this was before I formatted the card I believe. I tried asking SanDisk if it was a legitimate card, but they're pretty frustrating to work with.
 
This is kind of interesting. I was getting buffer errors on the Class 4 Ultra 16gig within 5 minutes of using, after formatting it on the 7D. Quite frequently also.

I've never had any problems with the Ultra 8gig. Same card, but smaller capacity.

I called Sandisk and the tech support guy told me it was a genuine card. You can call them and they will tell you if it's genuine based on the serial number on the card.

So the Sandisk Tech told me to go onto my Macintosh, use Disk Utilities and format the CF card. So I did. And this is where it get interesting. Since formatting it on my Macintosh as opposed to the 7D, I have had NO buffer errors. I haven't really pushed it, but it does seem to be working a lot better than when I formatted it on the 7D.

Strange.....
 
gene_can_sing said:
I just got 2 new Sandisk Ultra 16gb 30mbps (class 4) from Amazon and they're giving me buffer errors right off the bat.
Click to expand...
Since the 7D/550D/T2i writes video data at 50Mbps you shouldn't be surprised. You can be lucky, but for video class 6 is the minimum reliable. Keep the class 4 for stills.
 
Rainer said:
Since the 7D/550D/T2i writes video data at 50Mbps you shouldn't be surprised. You can be lucky, but for video class 6 is the minimum reliable. Keep the class 4 for stills.
Click to expand...

Really, from what I understand it's the opposite. In the manual it says that for video you need a minimum card of 8mps, and class 4 is far faster than that, and up until now (5 cards later), I've never had 1 buffer error with the Sandisks.

I thought that for burst mode (RAW) in Stills, that's where you need the fast card. I think the burst mode is much more taxing on the CF card than video.

I could be wrong though. Not quite as up on the specs. as some.
 
Exactly, shooting raw still is much more taxing and class 6 if totally fine for video *class 4 can also work. I use the sandisk extreme sd cards 30MB/s but that is mainly for raw stills. 30MB/s is 240Mbps, so ya your 50Mbps video stream should be fine even with the 15MB/s cards (140Mbps).

RMA the card
 
gene_can_sing said:
In the manual it says that for video you need a minimum card of 8mps, and class 4 is far faster than that
Click to expand...
True, but you need 50mbps for video (sorry, I did mean mbps in my earlier post. And I was referring to Jpegs rather than sustained burst RAW, which no card can handle, but which I guess is becoming commonplace). My manual (60D) says "when shooting movies use a large capacity SD card with SD Speed class 6 or higher rating", i.e. higher than 6Mbps. A fragmented class 6 card thus is very marginal for video. Gene_can_sing said his card was Class 4. Least sustained write speed for a fragmented class 4 card is 4Mbps, which is how the class is derived. You can be lucky with a newly formatted card, but you can't rely on it and a buffer error wouldn't be unexpected. I'd take the speed Sandisk writes on it's cards with a grain of salt (who knows under what ideal conditions these are derived) and just go by the card class.
 
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