I'm a lifelong storage engineer, first with HDD and then later flash, so I'm intimately familiar with how this technology works, and how it fails. What I don't understand where the notion of XQD cards being so much more reliable than SD came from. I understand where you're coming from, and appreciate you taking the time to express your thoughts in detail. Or we could have 2 slots and a considerably deeper camera, but then if its not so much smaller and lighter than the previous D generation, then where's the win? Smaller and lighter, sure, but that means one slot. They would have done exactly that, and weighed it up against the size reduction and the overall weight and feel they were going for, and picked which compromise they wanted.
It then strikes me as being very 'Nikon' to think that the engineering argument is more compelling than the 2 vs 1 'fear' argument to buyers. Sorry - focus is on the cards and not the slots, sure the slot failure rate is insignificant. On what engineering basis are you theorizing the failure rate of two SD card slots?
I'm expecting that the slot failure rate is incredibly small, and that 99.x% of failures come from the cards themselves (sadly reasonably common for SD), problem is that what consumers think of as failure is not being able to take their photos, so Nikon's slots may be perfect but they still have to absorb the risk of the SD cards, and make the calculation based on that vs one XQD card and its slot. but didn't count on the audience ignoring the overall improvement and fixating on one being worse than two. They probably looked at the failure rate of two SD card slots (and underlying circuitry) vs one XQD and figured it was better. They went for the option which looked more future-proof. You might not want any of that, but possibly quite a lot of people do. Yep you do get faster speeds, high capacity, and also a card designed for greater reliability. They're cheaper than the nearest equivalent SD card. Once CF Express cards come online, XQD cards will drop in price. Now, that same XQD 64GB card costs about $130. Sony pretty much owns the monopoly on the XQD card and can now charge whatever they want. Lexar got out of the game a long time ago and was taken over by a company called ProGrade (who is headlining the new CF Express card).
At one time, Lexar XQD cards cost about $80 for 64gb. In terms of higher costs, the only reason why they cost what they cost now is because only Sony (and to a lesser degree Delkin) is making them. With the incoming CF Express card that will use the same form factor as the XQD card, Nikon will have future proofed the Z6, Z7 as well as the D500 and D5 especially if in terms of video capture, it records in higher bit rates internally. The XQD form factor is just robust as heck and keeps up nicely on both the D500 and Z6. Of the last 8 SDXC Cards I use on my D500, 2 have already failed.but that XQD card is still going strong even after some slight damage. The SD card, for the most part is outdated and becoming increasingly unreliable. What's the big deal with XQD and why are they so expensive? Is this just more video hoo-ha?įuture proofing. XQD does nothing for me - I don't need any more speed or capacity than I already have with SD. I recently bought a Z6, and the fact that it uses XQD was definitely not one of the reasons.