How much does it wear an SD card to be frequently removed/reinserted?

Solution 1:

Here is example of SD card specification: http://www.transcend-info.com/products/spec.asp?Stype=Spec&ModNo=376&flag=showdetail

Durability 10,000 insertion/removal cycles 7 years while you'll use it every day ( remove from camera, plug in to computer, remove from computer and plug in to camera ).

And remember, you can buy another card, but you can't buy(and easily change) USB plug in camera. USB plug is not very durable too.

Solution 2:

The dark marks you see there are not actually scratches, but rather accreted dirt. You can usually wipe off the dirt and other patinas that tend to accumulate on metal with a soft, rubber pencil eraser. The contacts will be nice and shiny again and have electrical conductance that’s about as good as new.

The lighter marks you see on a couple of those contacts are indeed scratches. That is a little unusual because the pins in the reader are usually curved and don’t generally lead to that much scratching. There’s a few options:

1. Insert the card more gently, and straight in, not at an angle (always a good idea anyway)
2. Use a different reader if possible
3. Replace the card if possible
4. Alternate two or three cards to spread the wear out
5. Use the cable to connect the camera to transfer the photos (page 165 of the manual) instead of physically moving the card (Mac-specific on page 166); set the mode USB connection mode—page 54—to Mass Storage so that it appears as a drive
6. Use a wireless Eye-Fi card instead of an SD card (page 147)

In general, if you are making that much use of a card, the NAND cells will probably wear out before the contacts do (in fact, the pins on the reader will probably bend or wear out before the pads on the card will).

Solution 3:

Yes contacts wearing out can cause card failure, found in this document.

One can assume frequent removal and insertion will accelerate when the failure will occur, some things we don't know is how thick the gold on the contacts is, and the alloys use in the gold, which would determine how quickly it will fail in your particular case.

Click "Articles" on the right side of this page for more technical documents on gold contacts.