Delete or Format???

cdonovan

what do you folks do, and why???

jkelly25

I always reformat in camera. I figure wiping it clean is better than just deleting. However, after learning that flash cards don't last forever, I have been wondering if that is the best strategy, since I sometimes format a card that doesn't have much on it. Could I be shortening the life?

cmason

I have found that if I dont format the card, it ends up with many empty folders, which take up some small amount of room, but mostly, make it a durn PITA to move photos off the card from a cardreader.

If I format, it removes the empty folders.

cdonovan

I am especially curious now because before last weekend, I had no idea what formatting meant.

I thought it was great...but then ran into a problem with not being able to get pictures off the card.

A flash card dosen't last forever? why the heck do i have a lifetime warranty on them then? Do you mean it's like battery life, the memry gets smaller and smaller after each use???

justME

I format my cards, defrag, and check for errors and then I format in the camera.
Paranoid but never had a problem with any of my cards, so it works for me.

sirsloop

just curious... how do you defrag an empty drive/card? The whole point of defragmenting a drive is to get segements of a file phsically located close to each other so read time is reduced. CF doesnt have any platters, so there would be difference in read time if the files were strewn all over "memory". I think the biggest question is just how do you defrag nothing??

gus

Lot of info in search ..

cdonovan

gus wrote:

Lot of info in search ..

Why didn't i think of that!!!

thank you

Art Scott

Wne I purchased my first digital pocket camera (HP CP200), I asked the card manufacturer what should be done and they (lexar) recommended to always format and to do it in camera....They (Lexar) told me to never, ever, format or do anything else (besides downloading) using the computer, unless card fails and you are of course going to have to recoever files using the computer....according to lexar even if your computer formats in fat32 and so does your camera it couse cause probs using the card in the camera.....

So my cards only come out of the camera to be downloaded and then go back in for formatting.

colourbox

jkelly25 wrote:

However, after learning that flash cards don't last forever, I have been wondering if that is the best strategy, since I sometimes format a card that doesn't have much on it. Could I be shortening the life?

I don't think so. I don't think formatting writes over every memory location in the card. I think it's like when you format a disk. Your computer can do a basic disk format in seconds or less because it merely wipes out the directory structure and puts a new one in there. That information is in a specific place and that's all that needs to be overwritten. But if you format a disk with one of those "write zeroes" or "write random data" options, then it does have to write over every location and that can take hours.

Summary (as I understand it, could be wrong):
Erase: Erases records of individual images, but leaves directory (folder) structure intact.
Format: Erases directory structure, so that even if there are photos still on the card that were not erased, you'll never locate them again without some kind of rescue utility.

I'll have to check my manual, but I have a fuzzy memory that images locked using the camera can be protected from Erases, but not Formats. Also I think I have heard with some cameras that if you have non-photo media on a card (movies, sounds), "Erase all photos" takes out photos but leaves non-photo files.

As far as defragmenting a card, erasing probably doesn't do that, but formatting almost certainly should. By wiping out the file allocation tables through formatting, new images should go on the freshly blanked card in perfect sequence.

wxwax

Format, every time.

cdonovan, a flash card only has so many cycles in it.

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

Format, every time.

cdonovan, a flash card only has so many cycles in it.

Nothing lasts forever, or so I've been told.

Scott_Quier

cdonovan wrote:

A flash card dosen't last forever? why the heck do i have a lifetime warranty on them then? Do you mean it's like battery life, the memry gets smaller and smaller after each use???

The memory doesn't get smaller, it gets worn out.

If memory serves (and that's open to question), the memory is rated at something like 100K or 250K cycles. That means that each bit is "supposed" be able to be flopped that many times. But, MTBF numbers are statistics and are, therefore, not much better than averages. However, if these numbers are close to being right and if you remember that a bit gets flopped once when the image is written to a location and again when the card if formatted, you are looking at something approximating 50K image/format cycles. There are some folks that shoot that much that they may approach that limit before they loose the card, but I would bet not many.

As for the life-time warranty, I thinking the manufacturer is betting that (1) you don't remember about the life-time warranty, (2) that you don't still have the reciept, and (3) that you think it worth your time and effort to get the card replaced - what with the prices of memory dropping as fast as they are.