I think the issue is that all flash storage has a certain number of writable
cycles before a given address "wears out" and cannot be written to anymore.
For most consumer flash media I've seen the typical value is 100,000 writes.
This does not mean writing 100,000 files, nor completely filling it 100,000
times, but the number of times a specific sector is written to. So the rep
is being honest - technically. 

However, the drives also include basic capability to know which sectors have
been written to and in the event that a sector hit the wall so to speak the
information would continue to be written to other sectors and the user would
be completely unaware. In other words this sounds very much to me like the
discussions about using official HP paper in your HP copier, a Bell
telephone in the 1980s, etc. 

Here are the key considerations: 
1. The rep was being a bit disingenuous in suggesting that non-Panasonic
cards would "lose memory". It's kinda sorta technically accurate as noted
above but from a user perspective the technical term is "bunk". 

2. We don't know what 100,000 write cycles converts to in e.g. years but I
submit that unless you are still writing files to your old 8-32 MB(!) cards,
this is a non-issue. You will have upgraded to the next
bigger/faster/snazzier media long before you need to worry about it. 

3. Flash media is actually probably about the best media we have for digital
preservation today because it's fast like magnetic and reasonably robust,
even including the write cycle limits above. However, as I and others have
said before here, it's not the media that's the issue, it's the availability
of a reader to read it and software to interpret its contents that are the
primary considerations for digital preservation. 

So for all of you snapping thousands of pictures you want to save, feel
comfortable using *any* flash card you find at a major retailer or computer
supplier. Unless you leave the card in your pants and wash it, the card
should last at least 5-10 years. Have a backup copy - these things get lost
too, you know - and periodically copy them off of the older cards to a
newer, bigger, and most likely cheaper one. Or print the ones you really
like and ditch the others. :)

Regards from sunny Pasco, WA this a.m., 

Jesse Wilkins, CRM
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(303) 574-0749 direct
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jessewilkins

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