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Photo Forum / Digital Photography / Digital Photo / March 2005Formatting Mem. Cards
I'm getting conflicting opinions on the formatting of Camera Memory Cards. When should one do this, ? how often, ? &, Does it do any harm ? Please don't jump in here unless you know for sure, as guessing doesn't help any... I contacted Kodak twice , and their answer made no sense at all. Considering where some of these call centres are located, it's no wonder... Thanks in advance for any help... > I'm getting conflicting opinions on the formatting of Camera Memory Cards. > When should one do this, ? how often, ? &, Does it do any harm ? [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Considering where some of these call centres are located, it's no wonder... > Thanks in advance for any help... Formatting a card in the camera is safe. It is not necessary unless you notice a fall-off in the card's capacity. >I'm getting conflicting opinions on the formatting of Camera Memory Cards. >When should one do this, ? how often, ? &, Does it do any harm ? >Please don't jump in here unless you know for sure, as guessing doesn't help What a format does is wiping clean the area containing the table of contents describing where the pictures are stored (in pieces or contigiously). Starting over like that will ensure contigiously stored pictures if you delete only the last picture taken (if deleting some at all)... so that if you should get an error and the card seems to be blank, the files could be saved because they're stored in one single piece and not fragments. >I'm getting conflicting opinions on the formatting of Camera Memory Cards. >When should one do this, ? how often, ? &, Does it do any harm ? [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >Considering where some of these call centres are located, it's no wonder... > Thanks in advance for any help... Never format a card unless it quits working. You stand a chance, however small, of destroying the card when formatting it. And of course, only do it in the camera it is is used in. Likewise, if possible, it should be in the camera when the images are deleted, either by the camera or the upload software. PJ > Never format a card unless it quits working. >You stand a chance, however small, of destroying >the card when formatting it. ? Links, references, reasoning? Given that when you deliberately format the card, by definition there shouldn't be anything on it you want... what better time to discover if it is going to die on you, or that there is a fault in it? I'm happy to be corrected, but I would suggest a reformat every 6 months or so, *in the device* that it is used in, not some other reader. IMO if a card can't take regular formatting then I would not trust it with properly storing my future pics. > Never format a card unless it quits working. You stand a chance, > however small, of destroying the card when formatting it. Greetings Yoonome, You can format the card as often as you like. Just make sure that you have captured all of the images to your hard drive or burned to a CD etc. Once you have secured the images, you can clear the card. There are also a number of ways to format media. In general I would use FAT as the option for cameras. FAT = File Allocation Table. There is a newer FAT32 that relates to the same thing but in 32 bit, which if fine for computers etc. But the earlier version of FAT works well in cameras. What specifically do you want to know about formatting and what is end result you are after, Yoonome? Glad to help you out. Ron Baird Eastman Kodak Company > I'm getting conflicting opinions on the formatting of Camera Memory Cards. > When should one do this, ? how often, ? &, Does it do any harm ? [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Considering where some of these call centres are located, it's no wonder... > Thanks in advance for any help... Shame on you Ron Baird. That is the worse answer you have ever given in this NG. The truth is NEVER format a picture memory card in the computer or reader. Only format memory cards in the camera that the card is to be used in. Formatting to FAT32 will most likely cause the camera to refuse the memory card as being defective and sometimes will not reformat. Since Memory cards have a limited write cycle, excessive formatting shortens the life of the card.  SignatureCSM1 http://www.carlmcmillan.com -- > Greetings Yoonome, > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > wonder... >> Thanks in advance for any help... LOL...bologna! When you write your pictures to your card you are doing an almost complete rewrite of your card in each loaction. This "wear out your memory / limited writes", old wives tale went out with hooped skirts. Look at the specs. The card will be worn out about 100 years after you are dead and your 256byte card is obsolete. If you can't format your card sometimes, who would trust it with yout hard spent photo time? > Shame on you Ron Baird. > That is the worse answer you have ever given in this NG. [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] > > wonder... > >> Thanks in advance for any help... Yeah! And hard drives never fail either! If you believe the drive manufacturers specs, hard drives last forever. Well, at least 100,000 hours or about 11 years. The life of memory cards: http://datataker.com/technotes/TN0013A1%20-%20DT800%20Compact%20Flash%20Card%20C ompatibility.pdf Quote: Erase Cycles The number of times a sector on a card can be erased impacts on the useful life of the card. This is typically 10,000 to 1,000,000 times. Sandisk White paper: http://www.sandisk.com/pdf/oem/WPaperWearLevelv1.0.pdf Memory cards have long lifetimes, but not unlimited. SignatureCSM1 http://www.carlmcmillan.com -- > LOL...bologna! > When you write your pictures to your card you are doing an almost complete [quoted text clipped - 56 lines] >> > wonder... >> >> Thanks in advance for any help... I have had many harddrives fail over the years but never for the last five. Your point is moot. read the text and other posts about controlled failure. > Yeah! And hard drives never fail either! > > If you believe the drive manufacturers specs, hard drives last forever. > Well, at least 100,000 hours or about 11 years. > > The life of memory cards: http://datataker.com/technotes/TN0013A1%20-%20DT800%20Compact%20Flash%20Card%20C ompatibility.pdf > Quote: > Erase Cycles [quoted text clipped - 68 lines] > >> > wonder... > >> >> Thanks in advance for any help... Hi all... This is incredible, the number of different answers and opinions. The actual facts must lie somewhere in between. Someone somewhere must know it all. I emailed Kodak with a very clear succinct question, and the answer I got sounded like it came from India or somewhere near...Pathetic indeed. As for myself, I format only in my Camera, which is a Kodak DX 6490. I don't do it very often, but after I load up the card with pics and d/load to the PC, I may format at that time, which isn't too often... I have never read anywhere that formatting can damage the Card... >I have had many harddrives fail over the years but never for the last five. > Your point is moot. read the text and other posts about controlled [quoted text clipped - 89 lines] >> >> > wonder... >> >> >> Thanks in advance for any help... Geee, well I best not *use* my hard drive, or re-format it as I do every couple of years - because it will wear out SOOOOO much quicker. I mean, I wouldn't want that one extra pass to be the one that damages it. And I CERTAINLY wouldn't want to know IN ADVANCE that it was about to fail (by formatting it you have at least checked that you can access every FAT entry). No, that would never do.. (/sarcasm off) By the way, at that same Sandisk site, the advice for just about every memory card problem starts with the advice to format/re-format it in the device. And simple formatting does not actually write to every memory location anyway. Oh, and I took a look at that pdf file. The *worst* case they quoted was ".. a data logging operation using ..1GB card where a new 4kB file is written every five seconds. Lifetime = 79.3 years", and they say "..these examples ... demonstrate that SanDisk card architecture exceeds reasonable life expectancy in typical applications." Can't afford a format occasionally? (O; And then I took a look at the datataker site - this is a DATALOGGER capable of writing information (and changing it) at a very high rate... The example they are using is that the logger is writing continuously to the card at about 15Kb per second *continuously*, every second, every minute, every hour, every.... It is NOTHING like a digicam, and even then it still says this: "In practice the DT800 would rarely operate at a sustained rate of 30 sectors per second for any real world application so the life of the card should never really be an issue (unless the card does not provide for wear leveling)." |
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