rrforster12 Loc: Leesburg Florida

Reformatting your card is a healthy procedure for the card. It finds and isolated any bad sectors and bytes that have become corrupted, and in addition it cleans all the previously deleted file info from the card so that new files do not have to contend with over-writting that old info.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Here's the story straight from Sandisk tech support:
1.Constant formatting does no harm to the card. It brings the card back to an as-new condition (except for any possible defects, of course).
2.If read/write speed is critical, an unformatted card will often be slightly slower, but not enough to be noticeable by the average user. High performance users may notice the difference, or may not since many use cards that are faster then the camera requires in the first place.
3.While an occasional format is not a bad idea, not formatting has no undesireable side effects, other then the possible speed issue. It is an option you can use or not use as you see fit.
4.Corrupted images are almost always a software issue, or a failed card, not because a card was or wasn't formatted.

As far as Sandisk is concerned, the whole issue comes down to speed. If getting every last bit of speed out of a card is necessary then format often. If not, then don't worry about it. Data corruption doesn't figure in.

One more thing: Sandisk recommends always formatting on a computer.

Sandisk Tech support: 1-866-726-3475

lwerthe1mer Loc: Birmingham, Alabama

For my unprofessional use, I have found that a 16MB card will hold 2-300 RAW images. I reformat after loading my photos to my computer. That's adequate for me. 45 MB is a real monster which is probably only necessary if someone uses the memory card to store and organize photos. Or if someone takes extremely large volumes of photos.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

Formatting not only erases the card, but it also re-establishes the index while proving that any bad areas are locked out. You don't need to do it, but any computer person will recommend that you do.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

A blessing from you? Gee Sonny, I don't know what to say. I haven't seen such sincerity since having to wipe it off my boots as a kid on the farm!
If you read my previous post you will see that I was incorrect in one way. Formatting is not a total waste of time for some people where speed is concerned. A small minority of people, I would guess. As far as data being corrupted because the card wasn't formatted, that's still nonsense.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

What's nonsense is 5 pages of this discussion! All of you, me included, go out (or not) and take/make some photos!

canarywood1 Loc: Sarasota,Florida

And another from Samsung, eventually the card will fail no matter how you or when you format.

What is OP?

An SSD controller is responsible for the massive task of managing all data traffic and storage for the drive. NAND technology’s intrinsic complexities require a lot of extra work behind the scenes. A data write is not as simple as placing data into an empty memory bank. Each NAND cell has a limited lifespan – it can only endure a specific number of data reads/writes. An additional layer of complexity is added by the fact that overwriting old data on NAND requires an erase of the entire NAND block (this same block may contain other data that is still valid). As a result, the controller is constantly moving data around to ensure that the cells wear evenly and to preemptively prepare “free blocks” to use for future data writes.
All of this management work requires the SSD to have a kind of “swap space” available to use as temporary storage while the controller goes about its business. The controller will use any available free space for this, but free space becomes a premium commodity as we fill our drives with data. OP is a way to set aside a minimum amount of free space, inaccessible to the user or the OS, which the SSD controller can utilize as a kind of “work bench.”

MacroChick

Lots of good advice. I format mine before each shoot. I do not do it after downloading the images, but that is just in case they do not load to my website or get corrupted on my computer.


Formatting does not shorten the life, but it does prevent corruption.

Think of it as film. Back in the day you did not (regularly) double expose the negative. You started with a fresh negative and got a clean image.

Formatting the card clears out all of the data and is making it new again. Deleting makes the index not show, but the file is still there and just gets written over, and when the data is written over it can intermingle. Uncommon, but it can happen.

99% of the time, it gives you the same result. You have no problems. But when you DO have a problem, you will be glad you formatted vs deleting.

The one time I had an SD Card not download the photos, when I went back to retrieve the data, it was good data, and not corrupted. If I you delete all the time, you will have partial data, that will not help you recover the files as cleanly and easily.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

You can do it either way. I only format every day because I don't want to be out on a shoot and have my card come up with a write error. Errors are less likely after a format than with just deleting files because the file allocation table is refreshed to new condition during a format. It isn't when you just delete files.

MickeyZ

Formating a card in your camera is similar to formatting a disk on your computer. It erases the card and makes the card useable to the device. If your card gets erased that could be a function of your program that you use to read the card.

the f/stops here Loc: New Mexico

Again, SonnyE hits it right on the head. Also, by formatting, you are telling the media what camera it's in and the camera, what media is in it. Think of it this way, if there is a bad sector on the card, the camera will not dump any information to that bad sector and if the card is too bad, it won't allow the camera to load any images on it at all, keeping you from taking photos and then later, finding out that they never got recorded.

Get in the habit of formatting your media card every time you place it into your camera, unless you are replacing it into the same camera as a continuation of your photography. Best and thanks for the good question, J. Goffe

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

One slight correction. When there is bad sector information, that information never leaves the card, and the camera never knows which or how many sectors are bad. It doesn't need to know that information.

When a picture is written to the card, standard protocols are used in which the camera sends a series of commands and the data. The card in turn, which has its own smarts, sees the instructions and starts writing the picture info to the card. When bad sectors are encountered, the card knows to skip that sector and proceed to the next. When reading the picture information back, each tiny cluster has a linked-list pointer to the address of the next cluster, so again, after you have selected which picture, the transfer process is handled in the card and data is given back to what is asking for the picture.

It is true that there may be some differences in formatting between doing it in the camera, and probably certain information is embedded during this format that the camera is going to look for versus doing it on a computer. I suspect it is because the camera is only tolerant to one type of formatting and to a PC, for instance, there are several types of formats that can be done. I have seen the case where I pulled the SD card from a Canon Point and Shoot with some pictures already on it and inserted into a Sony DSLR with the intent of adding more pictures. Upon powering up the Sony, it immediately responded with invalid format and wanted to reformat, and I immediately turned it off and placed the card back into the Canon before the other pictures were destroyed.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

In short, it seems that cards are smarter and more capable of protecting data then many people seem to realize. I had heard of the Sony thing and I wonder if they use a proprietary file system, instead of one of the 3 FAT formats used on the various sized SD cards. I believe, although I didn't ask specifically, that the reason Sandisk recommends formatting on a computer is because they also recommend using a specific format program, SDFormatter. It is designed to preserve the protected areas on the card. Formatting to improve speed is something some people may benefit from. Formatting out of fear that not doing so will somehow cause their photos to be corrupted is a waste of time, IMO. I've never done it in over 13 years of digital cameras and I've never lost a photo except through my own carelessness. The people who design the cards have a pretty good idea of what they are doing, I do believe.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I suspect it not that Sony uses a unique file system. The PC has no trouble with it. I really suspect there is some additional information saved to the card that lets it know that it was formated on the Sony and when it doesn't see that additional information, it tries to do something about it.

I just looked at a Sony formated card and there are two subdirectories already there and in one marked PRIVATE, there is a SONY subdirectory, and within that directroy is a 0-byte file called SONYCARD.IND. I wonder if that file is deleted if it stops to reformat?

Well, just tried it. The card did not cause it to ask for reformatting and it took a picture. But there are other files. I delete all of them and upon power up, said the Image Database File was missing and asked me if it could create.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

I would guess that you are on the right trail (write trail?). One thing that Sandisk told me was that their cards Plug & Play. No need to format. Just put them in and start shooting. I wonder if that applies to Sony? What happens when you put a brand new card in your Sony.