frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

That's what a defrag does.... it reorganizes the split up files and puts them back together, then when the spot is emptied, it is rewritten with 0's before writing new data........yes i do this as often as needed.....to speed up the machine.

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

One should defrag a hard drive periodically in order to speed up (a little) accessing fragmented files, but never defrag an SSD. It isn't necessary, and it decreases the life-span of the drive, as there are a limited number of writes and rewrites available.

Loren - Baguio City

foxfirerodandgun Loc: Stony Creek, VA

But once again I ask, what is the difference between quick and full formats and how, or what should you use, to do you do each?

blackest Loc: Ireland

its often useful to think of an sdcard as a library with a card index. The card index tells you which shelf has a particular book. A quick format clears the index but leaves the old books in place, the analogy breaks a bit here, when new material is added to the library then the old file is over written.

A full format scrubs the shelves clean.

Mostly a quick format is enough. If you had files you don't want to be recovered then you might use a full format.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

It's in manufacturers manuals! Of course most folks either think they know everything or they are just to lazy. Format your cards in your camera and save yourself future problems. It only takes 10 seconds.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

A full format cannot be done in a camera, period. A full format looks for bad sectors plus what it does during a quick format, period. That is why a full format takes so much longer to do on a harddrive on a computer. If you want to do a full format on a sd card or any other card it would need to be done on a computer. I don't believe you can do a full format on a camera.

blackest Loc: Ireland

I've never seen a full format done on an sdcard in camera unless you count filling it which pretty much achieves the same thing. There are a limited number of writes before a block will eventually fail.

I wouldn't really say a full format goes looking for bad sectors, but it writes and reads all of the sectors allocated for storage so if any bad ones are found they will be discovered. There are likely a few as manufactured but there are usually some spare blocks that are mapped in as a card wears.

https://media.kingston.com/pdfs/MKF_283.1_Flash_Memory_Guide_EN.pdf

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

When you choose to run a Full Format on a volume (or partition), files are removed from the volume that you are formatting and the hard disk is scanned for bad sectors. ... When you choose to run a Quick Format on a volume (or partition), format removes files from the partition, but does not scan the disk for bad sectors.
On my computers I do full formats about once a year. I store no data on system drives other than the actual programs and systems files. (except current project for faster access time, once finished with them they are moved to external drives) Everything, drawings, photos, docs you name it... all kept on externals. After performing a Full format, installing upgrades such as video cards, memory sticks whatever if necessary. I reinstall all my software and it's like a new machine. A pain, absolutely, is it worth it, absolutely. I look at it like this, for every minute it takes to format and reinstall everything, I gain 10 times that in productivity not having to wait for a slow machine to do what it's meant to do in the time it's meant to do it.

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/fat32-or-ntfs-how-format-sd-cards-memory-sticks-and-hard-drives

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Defragging is not what a full format does, not even close. A full format deletes everything from your drive, writes brand new file structure in whatever format you choose, and checks for bad sectors and marks any found bad sectors as unaccessable for future use. This was needed occasionally in the old days, (80's and 90's) but rarely needed today. By rarely, I mean almost never, and if "never" comes, you best be looking for a new drive, as whatever is causing the need, is likely to kill your drive sooner than later.

Defragging does what you said, but that also was needed often in the old DOS days, but with modern file systems and drives, almost never needed. Deleting all the files from your SD card, regardless if done in camera, on a PC or with a quick format, does the same exact thing as far as defragging is concerned, and is never needed on a camera SD card unless you use it to permanently store files on it, which no one should do.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Defragging is a HD thing. It really does not apply to SD cards. Your camera does a either a "quick" or "low level" format both different than a computer's full format.

foxfirerodandgun Loc: Stony Creek, VA

OK.........I'm still unsure as to what quick & full formats on SD / CF cards are. If you format a card in the computer, is that considered to be a "full" format, and in the camera is a "quick" format? BTW, I know what a computer hard drive format is. Thanks.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

On camera my understanding is that there is a quick format that simply resets the file and folder information. A low level format re-initializes the card for use on your camera and marks any unusable parts of the card. In a low level format the data is lost forever while a quick format does not delete or overwrite the files. After a quick format, the data "may" be retrievable with software designed for this purpose. Normally you would quick format a card when you want to delete all the files at one time. You would low level format a card that has been acting up. You should always low level format a card the first time you use it in a given camera.

foxfirerodandgun Loc: Stony Creek, VA

On a Nikon D series camera, are both quick & low level formats done with a card in the camera? If so, is using the format option in the menu a low level format, and using the two buttons on the camera a quick format or vice versa? I understand by your explanation what the difference between the two are, however, distinguishing where & how to do these two types of formats is what I'm trying to understand. Thanks,

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

I use Canon. Perhaps a Nikon user can comment on Nikon terminology.