Formatting SD card every time you delete images necessary?

[indigoshrine]

While I am using the Sony a7III, this probably applies to most models.

Since getting the unit I had made it a best practice to reformat the SD card whenever I wanted to clear up storage space. So whenever it was getting somewhat full, I would connect it to my PC, copy my images to the local HDD, then format the card inside the camera. As this would also delete the M1-M4 settings, I would keep a local copy of my 'PRIVATE' folder around which I manually put onto the drive again after formatting.

This is of course a lot of overhead, especially since one needs to manually copy back the PRIVATE folder to not lose certain settings. The reason I am doing this is because it was officially recommended by Sony. But over time and getting more confident with the camera, I am increasingly wondering whether this is just exaggerated and one can easily just delete files off the SD card in the PC, then put the card back in and not worry about reformatting on a frequent basis.

I have done this a few times too and not noticed any problems. What is still holding me back from skipping this step for good is that I do not know if Sony might create some internal library/index file so when you remove/modify stuff off-camera on your PC, it might lead to issues. I definitely do not want to risk ever losing data just because of this.

But if several other users here have long term experience not doing this and can confirm this is not a problem, I would feel encouraged enough to also drop this task for good.

 

[Ron Poelman]

A card playing up when you just shot the secret of life, is a bad look.
Why not plug in the spare card while you play with the main one ?

--
Ron.
Volunteer, what could possibly go wrong ?

 

[DirkPeh]

Reformatting cards isn’t necessary except for rare occasions when the file system got damaged. Do you reformat the ssd in your pc every time after you deleted a file? Just don’t forget to empty the trash bin / really delete the files.

 

[Jeff2013]

In the early days, digital camera software was not highly sophisticated and the File Allocation Table (FAT) could be easily be “corrupted” when files were deleted in the computer, so I always reformatted cards in the camera.

I believe that this is no longer an issue, but I still reformat my cards in camera after every use just to be safe and start with a clean FAT.

 

[Dave981]

I think there is an on-card db (at least there is a recover image db function). I had to use it once or twice when (iirc) I deleted a image or three from the card using my PC.

 

[jhunna]

..except when I am traveling to swap cards for more space.

I plug the camera up to the computer via USB-C and copy files to my computer using explorer. I then unplug my camera from the computer, and quick format the SD in camera.

This way I only lose my camset files and memory settings(Sony needs to improve this as my luts seem to be retained, I am assuming in camera)

I never format using a card reader and my PC unless a card has been corrupted and then I don't trust that card anymore.

 

[sludge21017]

The only thing you need to worry about is the "image database"... you could be playing back images that don't exist on your camera and see that black image with a ? on it.

 

[abe4652]

Wouldn't reformatting each time greatly increase the wear and tear on the SD ccard and so reduce its lifetime?

 

[Magnus Wedberg]

Wouldn't reformatting each time greatly increase the wear and tear on the SD ccard and so reduce its lifetime?

No, not if doing a quick format (which in-camera formatting always is). It basically just overwrites the file system index with a blank one. That's why images can often be recovered even from "formatted" media.

 

[indigoshrine]

Appreciate all the feedback. While some others also seem to format the SD cards frequently, the general gist I get out of the responses is that - in general - it should be fine just removing files on the PC and then put the card back.

I am not worried about possible images appearing in playback even though already deleted - as long as the SD card is robust enough to be handled pretty much like a USB stick (which of course I also rarely format - I just use it on and off the PC, drop files, move files, delete files ...), it should be fine.

That being said, reformatting every once in a while might still be worth it - I really just want to get rid of the overhead of doing it every time, because subconsciously the expected overhead made me try to avoid copying my files from card to PC a few times in the past out of laziness.

 

[lehill]

While I am using the Sony a7III, this probably applies to most models.

Since getting the unit I had made it a best practice to reformat the SD card whenever I wanted to clear up storage space. So whenever it was getting somewhat full, I would connect it to my PC, copy my images to the local HDD, then format the card inside the camera. As this would also delete the M1-M4 settings, I would keep a local copy of my 'PRIVATE' folder around which I manually put onto the drive again after formatting.

This is of course a lot of overhead, especially since one needs to manually copy back the PRIVATE folder to not lose certain settings. The reason I am doing this is because it was officially recommended by Sony. But over time and getting more confident with the camera, I am increasingly wondering whether this is just exaggerated and one can easily just delete files off the SD card in the PC, then put the card back in and not worry about reformatting on a frequent basis.

I have done this a few times too and not noticed any problems. What is still holding me back from skipping this step for good is that I do not know if Sony might create some internal library/index file so when you remove/modify stuff off-camera on your PC, it might lead to issues. I definitely do not want to risk ever losing data just because of this.

But if several other users here have long term experience not doing this and can confirm this is not a problem, I would feel encouraged enough to also drop this task for good.

If clearing up space so frequently is becoming a burden, maybe you need to get bigger memory cards.

Sony cameras do have an index file called the "image database" or "image db". Under the Setup menu (the suitcase) you'll find a function to Recover Image DB.

This image database is all very mysterious to me. Sometimes my computer will see a read-only hidden file named SONYCARD.IND in the PRIVATE/SONY folder. It has no date, no size, no properties.

 

[abe4652]

Wouldn't reformatting each time greatly increase the wear and tear on the SD ccard and so reduce its lifetime?

No, not if doing a quick format (which in-camera formatting always is). It basically just overwrites the file system index with a blank one. That's why images can often be recovered even from "formatted" media.

Ok.

But perhaps then it might be helkpful too once in a blue moon make the SD card completely blank by doing a computer format?

 

[aSevenArr]

While I am using the Sony a7III, this probably applies to most models.

Since getting the unit I had made it a best practice to reformat the SD card whenever I wanted to clear up storage space. So whenever it was getting somewhat full, I would connect it to my PC, copy my images to the local HDD, then format the card inside the camera. As this would also delete the M1-M4 settings, I would keep a local copy of my 'PRIVATE' folder around which I manually put onto the drive again after formatting.

This is of course a lot of overhead, especially since one needs to manually copy back the PRIVATE folder to not lose certain settings. The reason I am doing this is because it was officially recommended by Sony. But over time and getting more confident with the camera, I am increasingly wondering whether this is just exaggerated and one can easily just delete files off the SD card in the PC, then put the card back in and not worry about reformatting on a frequent basis.

I have done this a few times too and not noticed any problems. What is still holding me back from skipping this step for good is that I do not know if Sony might create some internal library/index file so when you remove/modify stuff off-camera on your PC, it might lead to issues. I definitely do not want to risk ever losing data just because of this.

But if several other users here have long term experience not doing this and can confirm this is not a problem, I would feel encouraged enough to also drop this task for good.

Always... and yes it's not a problem.

 

[Impulses]

Reformatting cards isn’t necessary except for rare occasions when the file system got damaged. Do you reformat the ssd in your pc every time after you deleted a file? Just don’t forget to empty the trash bin / really delete the files.

SSD do have much more advanced controllers with better garbage collection algorithms, TRIM support, etc. They basically move stuff around in the background or pseudo format certain areas themselves (that are initially only marked as deleted). An SD card isn't doing all that...

However, if you're deleting everything on the card I think it's fine to not format it. The potential for issues is when people start deleting piecemeal which can leave the card in a lower performance state, won't necessarily cause permanent harm but can cause issues.

 

[Impulses]

Wouldn't reformatting each time greatly increase the wear and tear on the SD ccard and so reduce its lifetime?

No, not if doing a quick format (which in-camera formatting always is). It basically just overwrites the file system index with a blank one. That's why images can often be recovered even from "formatted" media.

Ok.

But perhaps then it might be helkpful too once in a blue moon make the SD card completely blank by doing a computer format?

Not necessarily, all you're doing with a deeper format is overwriting stuff same as you would by writing new files to it while using it normally. A quick format marks everything off as deleted so it's ready to go, to the card it makes no difference wherher there's a 0 or a 1 there (gross oversimplification obviously).

Some people recommend a quick format or advise against deleting stuff here and there because the latter can leave around a certain mess (not fragmentation per se but similar) that the card could find it hard to recover from. If all of the card is marked as deleted tho then the controller should be smart enough to overwrite stuff in an intelligent way or as needed, which it can't do if it's say half full of files.

Cards and flash media don't work like hard drives, where stuff would always be written contiguously (and defragging kept that up), in a way they're the opposite. There's multiple NAND cells working in parallel which make the card faster (an SSD has many more), so the card may prefer to have the blocks (or pages) here and there because it can contiguously pull it from here and there whereas if they were both here it'd be slower.

Also, any flash media will slowly use up it's entire available space even if you never fill it up, on purpose, it's a wear leveling algorithm so that one part of the card doesn't die prematurely. So it's all gonna get written, marked as deleted, and overwritten in time, over and over. That's how it's meant to work, a deeper format is just one more cycle of that.

 

[ray_burnimage]

My workflow is:

1. Shoot

2. Upload every shoot to computer same day, which also means copying to two drives automatically (I use Carbon Copy Cloner).

3. Cloud backup kicks in at the same time (Backblaze).

4. Next shoot I then format cards in camera before starting the day.

Rinse and repeat.......

 

[grsnovi]

In the last 15 years or so of my digital camera use I have:

1. Always popped my SD cards out of the camera and inserted them into a computer and
2. Always erased the card's contents while the card was in the computer

The only time that I format the card is when I get a new camera and insert the card for the first time.

Maybe lucky but I've never had a card failure (probably I'll have one today).

 

[dcstep]

While I am using the Sony a7III, this probably applies to most models.

Since getting the unit I had made it a best practice to reformat the SD card whenever I wanted to clear up storage space. So whenever it was getting somewhat full, I would connect it to my PC, copy my images to the local HDD, then format the card inside the camera. As this would also delete the M1-M4 settings, I would keep a local copy of my 'PRIVATE' folder around which I manually put onto the drive again after formatting.

This is of course a lot of overhead, especially since one needs to manually copy back the PRIVATE folder to not lose certain settings. The reason I am doing this is because it was officially recommended by Sony. But over time and getting more confident with the camera, I am increasingly wondering whether this is just exaggerated and one can easily just delete files off the SD card in the PC, then put the card back in and not worry about reformatting on a frequent basis.

I have done this a few times too and not noticed any problems. What is still holding me back from skipping this step for good is that I do not know if Sony might create some internal library/index file so when you remove/modify stuff off-camera on your PC, it might lead to issues. I definitely do not want to risk ever losing data just because of this.

But if several other users here have long term experience not doing this and can confirm this is not a problem, I would feel encouraged enough to also drop this task for good.

Your process seems overly complicated. I shoot wildlife, so I'll often shoot several hundred shots in an outing, sometimes thousands. I take the card out of my camera, put it in a card reader, review the files with FastRawViewer and only copy files that I plan to convert from RAW to my laptop. I then process the images, put the card back in the camera and reformat it. All of the EXIF data stays with the files.



Reformatting is so fast and easy, I see no reason why one wouldn't want to do it. Deleting files manually seems like a waste of time.




Storage is cheap. If you want a temporary holding place, buy a Solid State USB drive.

 

[DirkPeh]

Wouldn't reformatting each time greatly increase the wear and tear on the SD ccard and so reduce its lifetime?

No, not if doing a quick format (which in-camera formatting always is). It basically just overwrites the file system index with a blank one. That's why images can often be recovered even from "formatted" media.

Ok.

But perhaps then it might be helkpful too once in a blue moon make the SD card completely blank by doing a computer format?

Quick format only deletes the file allocation table (FAT) at the start of the sd-card. Explained in a somewhat simplified way: if your card is nearly full, new files that don’t fit in one sequence due to their size are written in-between other files, the FAT tells the OS of the camera or computer, where they are to find to put them back together. This is the reason full storage devices like sd-cards, hard disks and ssds get slower. The fat is like a table of contents at the beginning of a book. This is the reason files can be restored on quick formatted disks or disks with a damaged FAT file. Most of the files are written in sequence, only there is no FAT that knows their location, like a book where the table of contents at the start is removed. If you delete a file, only the entry in the table of contents will be deleted, so that the OS can write on this location again if necessary. This leads to a slower speed on a disk often used, because now there are empty spaces in between other files that get filled, so if you take new pictures now, 1 is written at the start, 2 is written at the end, 3 in between the middle and the end. Some devices have intelligence that reorganises the memory, so that the files are written in sequence again and put together as long as there is enough space. It’s a long time ago, that I studied this.

 

[ray_burnimage]

Wouldn't reformatting each time greatly increase the wear and tear on the SD ccard and so reduce its lifetime?

No, not if doing a quick format (which in-camera formatting always is). It basically just overwrites the file system index with a blank one. That's why images can often be recovered even from "formatted" media.

Ok.

But perhaps then it might be helkpful too once in a blue moon make the SD card completely blank by doing a computer format?

Quick format only deletes the file allocation table (FAT) at the start of the sd-card. Explained in a somewhat simplified way: if your card is nearly full, new files that don’t fit in one sequence due to their size are written in-between other files, the FAT tells the OS of the camera or computer, where they are to find to put them back together. This is the reason full storage devices like sd-cards, hard disks and ssds get slower. The fat is like a table of contents at the beginning of a book. This is the reason files can be restored on quick formatted disks or disks with a damaged FAT file. Most of the files are written in sequence, only there is no FAT that knows their location, like a book where the table of contents at the start is removed. If you delete a file, only the entry in the table of contents will be deleted, so that the OS can write on this location again if necessary. This leads to a slower speed on a disk often used, because now there are empty spaces in between other files that get filled, so if you take new pictures now, 1 is written at the start, 2 is written at the end, 3 in between the middle and the end. Some devices have intelligence that reorganises the memory, so that the files are written in sequence again and put together as long as there is enough space. It’s a long time ago, that I studied this.

I’m no expert, but isn’t FAT (file allocation table) a bit last century and from the world of windows and spinning drives?

Always keen to learn more about such things