Chienworks, that really sounds funny. Good test though.

As far as I know SD cards have no EM shielding/ metal casing as a shield, like hardrives do.
But due to the data not being written magnetically (like tape) I guess it would be safe from magnets wiping out its data.

But if you move magnets fast enough near it, it could generate some harmful electricity within its circuitry. But I haven't tested that yet.

VMP

I'm sure that's possible. It's just a question of generating enough voltage in the very tiny circuits to trip the gates, which i think is very unlikely.

Extremely strong magnetic fields can do some quite unexpected things however the way these small magnets are being used there's no risks.

Bob.

Chances of a static magnet causing a problem =next to nothing.
Chances of a spinning or AC electromagnet causing a problem =??

I don't hear much about airport scanners or unshielded speakers causing problems with portable memory.

I have ran USB flash drives and my laptop thru a federal buildings scanner several times with no problems. Actually I was more worried about the bomb sniffing dog. :)

I cannot recall which manufacturer it was, possibly Sandisk, but I did read on one of their sites that the memory cards and SSDs are immune to the effects of magnets. There is most certainly no magnetic process used in the storage of data on these devices.

Talking about magnets and storage:

I didnt know that HDD were made so small!
0.85 inch!

http://www.steves-digicams.com/news/toshiba-introduces-worlds-smallest-hard-disk-drive-delivering-2--4-gigabyte-capacities-for-mobile-digital-devices.html#b

http://www.steves-digicams.com/memory/toshiba_hdd_sm.jpg

This is the world's smallest Cassette Tape - Sony NTC 120:



VMP

You ran a USB stick thru a dog ? Yucks !

;-)

geoff

lol

Way back in the day...
Of Floppy Disks, it was pretty easy to scramble data on magnetic discs, and the joke was "I left you the floppy on the refrigerator", under a magnet, of course.

Improvements in density, encoding and error correction methods made it pretty difficult to mess up the data on magnetic media. We would routinely have floppies in our baggage and never had a scanner, conveyor or X-Ray damage the data.

We used a bulk tape eraser on IBM tapes because they wouldn't format if they weren't first erased. Yes, we had to format tapes before we could use them. It would take a few hours to erase the reel of tape, and most of another day to format it. Even then, it was not easy to erase magnetic data.

If the proximity of a strong magnet would compromise data, then explain the very powerful neodymium magnets in every hard disk drive. (Before you trash an old drive, remove the magnets - they will hold any kid's artwork to the refrigerator)

I haven't run a USB stick through the dog (various other stuff, sweat socks, etc.,), but I did put a capped USB through the washer and dryer. Let it cool off and it worked fine. Still working fine several years later.