SD Card Deterioration Question (Page 2): My first question to the professional photographer would be, "how do you know this?" The truth is, nowadays professional photographers have no...

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

TonyBrown wrote:

A professional photographer recently told me that I should never delete images on an SD card in my camera as this can damage the card. He said that I should always download the images and only reformat the card in my camera. Is this fact or fiction? I often delete images in my camera while I am travelling to reduce editing when I get home.

My first question to the professional photographer would be, "how do you know this?"
The truth is, nowadays professional photographers have no greater access to information (and oftentimes misinformation!) than non-professionals. Although some like to pretend they do... as if they were privy to special information only accessible to paid professionals.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

rook2c4 wrote:

My first question to the professional photographer would be, "how do you know this?"
The truth is, nowadays professional photographers have no greater access to information (and oftentimes misinformation!) than non-professionals. Although some like to pretend they do... as if they were privy to special information only accessible to paid professionals.

SO much stuff on the net is crap, but people take it for gospel because it IS on the net.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

pithydoug wrote:

Sorry but there is a big difference between erasing a file and reformatting. Ever try to recover photos that were erased vs reformatted. Erasing a file simply flips some bits in the directory to show the space used is now available. It may or may not reuse that slot. That can give you a fragmented card but that is not a problem, merely some unused space but the directory stays basically there. Reformat erases the entire directory removing all pointers to the old data, aka looks clean.

We are speaking here about card life. And yes...there is a big difference between deleting and formatting from a logical perspective. But not from a physical electronic perspective. And not from a card life perspective.

The only thing I disagree with in this discussion is that it is beneficial to occasionally do a low level format in the computer as the card ages in order to identify and map around bad blocks. This would, of course, always be followed by an in-camera format.

Bottom line is that most recently purchased memory cards have the capability to outlive most of us if we treat them properly.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

larryepage wrote:

The only thing I disagree with in this discussion is that it is beneficial to occasionally do a low level format in the computer as the card ages in order to identify and map around bad blocks. This would, of course, always be followed by an in-camera format.

Bottom line is that most recently purchased memory cards have the capability to outlive most of us if we treat them properly.

Interesting I never thought about using the computer to reassign bad tracks. Did not realize the cards would allow that. Good to know.

With that in mind I'm surprised this is not an in-camera option.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

pithydoug wrote:

Interesting I never thought about using the computer to reassign bad tracks. Did not realize the cards would allow that. Good to know.

With that in mind I'm surprised this is not an in-camera option.

How do we know it doesn't?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

pithydoug wrote:

Interesting I never thought about using the computer to reassign bad tracks. Did not realize the cards would allow that. Good to know.

With that in mind I'm surprised this is not an in-camera option.

Actually, the physical trash can is the best idea for any SD card exhibiting any form of problem. They're cheap enough nowaways to never put your images at risk.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

TonyBrown wrote:

A professional photographer recently told me that I should never delete images on an SD card in my camera as this can damage the card. He said that I should always download the images and only reformat the card in my camera. Is this fact or fiction? I often delete images in my camera while I am travelling to reduce editing when I get home.

FWIW: just like any disk, deletion of a file really does not delete the file, it removes the entry in the file allocation table and marks the space used as free. The space may not be at the end of the used space, but at the beginning or somewhere in the middle. When a new file is written, it may or may not be written in the space once used by a previously deleted file, and it also may not fit in that space, so fragmentation can result in part of the new image being written in one location, and other parts in different locations. Fragmentation is more of a problem for spinning disks.

I suspect the fact of fragmentation has become more of an urban legend with SD cards these days.

For me, I do not delete from SD cards, I copy all images from card to computer, then reformat the card in the camera using it. I also always low level format as my Canon has that option in camera.

Perhaps I am a neat freak, but contiguous storage just seems right.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Dngallagher wrote:

.....

I suspect the fact of fragmentation has become more of an urban legend with SD cards these days.

.....

SD cards are X-Y addressable memory, just like the memory in your computer.
There are no cylinders or sectors like a hard drive.
The physical (actual) data storage method is different between the two.
(Logical storage is what you see - looks like a drive.)

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

CHG_CANON wrote:

Actually, the physical trash can is the best idea for any SD card exhibiting any form of problem. They're cheap enough nowaways to never put your images at risk.

Yes, if they start getting flaky, out they go.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

Longshadow wrote:

How do we know it doesn't?

have you ever done one on a computer? A full format that assigns alternate tracks would take one hell of lot more time. The code reads and writes to every track on the device to find bad spots. No way in camera format could work that fast. I have formatted my 16 and 32 in about 5 seconds or less.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

pithydoug wrote:

have you ever done one on a computer? A full format that assigns alternate tracks would take one hell of lot more time. The code reads and writes to every track on the device to find bad spots. No way in camera format could work that fast. I have formatted my 16 and 32 in about 5 seconds or less.

Ergo a low level format.
Don't forget, there are no "tracks or sectors" in and SD card. It's addressable memory like the RAM in your computer.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

TonyBrown wrote:

A professional photographer recently told me that I should never delete images on an SD card in my camera as this can damage the card. He said that I should always download the images and only reformat the card in my camera. Is this fact or fiction? I often delete images in my camera while I am travelling to reduce editing when I get home.

Sounds like he had a bad experience. Earlier flash memories had more problems and the technology has changed and matured rom the early days.

However the fact is that Flash memory has a finite life. The cells eventually wear out. So you can maximize the life by waiting until the card is full before reformatting or deleting. BUT how much life are you saving?

"Most commercially available flash products are guaranteed to withstand around 100,000 P/E cycles before the wear begins to deteriorate the integrity of the storage." - but this is old data, circa 2008. Modern flash memory is significantly more durable
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory

There may be good reasons to leave the images your card, but causing damage to the card is not one of them.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

JD750 wrote:

Sounds like he had a bad experience. Earlier flas... (show quote)

User ID

TonyBrown wrote:

A professional photographer recently told me that I should never delete images on an SD card in my camera as this can damage the card. He said that I should always download the images and only reformat the card in my camera. Is this fact or fiction? I often delete images in my camera while I am travelling to reduce editing when I get home.

Professionals are not necessarily experts.
Such is truly the case in this instance.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

User ID wrote:

Professionals are not necessarily experts.
Such is truly the case in this instance.

Nope, not in everything.