[BarryE]

It occurred to me as I finished shooting and cleaned up as I do, that part of my process is to erase the images to leave empty SD cards with a Format.
I know I could Delete the images, but for some reason I tend to Format the cards. Done it for years. (I download the photos via an SD card and a card reader - I never copy, erase etc from my PC - all these processes are done in-camera).

Are there any downsides in using Format rather than Delete, apart from a little speed difference? Maybe wear and tear on the cards is marginally greater using Format than Delete. Just thinking out loud ...

[microlight]

I format my cards too: I don’t see any downside to it. If you’ve ever done a dust detection, there’s an additional folder on the card called ‘dust’ which I’m not sure you can delete in camera.

[Roadboat24]

I always pull the images off into a computer then format the card in camera, in the slot it will be used in.

[swanlefitte]

Would format change the numbering system? I always delete on camera. I figured if I start having problems I would use format but wasn't sure if it resets back to naming image 1 again.

[Larrymc]

Would format change the numbering system? I always delete on camera. I figured if I start having problems I would use format but wasn't sure if it resets back to naming image 1 again.

Nope it doesn't change the numbering system at all. I format mine just like everyone else is referring to here and go on my merry way with a formatted card/s ready to shoot.

[stevebrot]

Are there any downsides in using Format rather than Delete, apart from a little speed difference? Maybe wear and tear on the cards is marginally greater using Format than Delete. Just thinking out loud ...

I too use format to wipe my cards. Conventional wisdom is that an in-camera format is preferable to erasing files or folders singly. Whether doing so increases "wear and tear" on the card using this method is hard to say. After all, a format rewrites the same section of the card each time. There are limits to the number of writes that might be made to a particular section of card, but the number usually cited is on the order of several million times. Going back to the "conventional wisdom", the logic of using format is that the file management is not so good with small devices and it is likely that with repeated write/delete, card efficiency may degrade over time unless regularly formatted. Doing so to wipe the card kills two birds with one stone.


Steve

[TerryL]

Nope it doesn't change the numbering system at all. I format mine just like everyone else is referring to here and go on my merry way with a formatted card/s ready to shoot.

Same here.

[stevebrot]

Would format change the numbering system?

No, the numbering is done using different magic.


Steve

[gatorguy]

I seem to remember that just deleting the images doesn't free up all the available space. FWIW you can also very often recover photos "deleted" from an SD card unless it has been formatted. That worked to a friend's advantage a couple months ago when her husband deleted some pics to use it in his computer. I may have saved a marriage by pointing her to software to recover them.

[Larrymc]

No, the numbering is done using different magic.


Steve

I think renumbering can be done in camera if I remember correctly its buried somewhere in the tool menu 2 file menu selection.

[gump]

Related to this is the removing of the card. When I first joined PF more than a year ago there was a thread discussing that using the removing (and reinserting) the card to download might put excessive wear on the card and card slot. I do not remember if there was ever a collective wisdom on this subject. Based on that I continue to use a USB cable to download. I use camera delete once per month after I copy the computer files to an external hard drive.

[BarryE]

Related to this is the removing of the card. When I first joined PF more than a year ago there was a thread discussing that using the removing (and reinserting) the card to download might put excessive wear on the card and card slot. I do not remember if there was ever a collective wisdom on this subject. Based on that I continue to use a USB cable to download. I use camera delete once per month after I copy the computer files to an external hard drive.

To me the usb method is more vulnerable. I believe it is attached to a circuit board and flex on that, to me, makes me use the remove SD card method.
I may be wrong ...

[biz-engineer]

Frequently deleting or formating SD card will reduce its life time because the new data will always be written again at the same bit cell locations. Waiting until the card is full to format it will increase its life time because the number of R/W operation per cell will be less.

[MossyRocks]

The only difference between FORMAT and DELETE is as follows: Protected images (camera feature) cannot be DELETED. They can be FORMATTED out of existence (see above).

Actually formatting flash cards and USB sticks does one additional thing which is beneficial. That is it allows the controller in the card/USB stick to do the wearleveling. Unlike SSDs that have a better and more complex controller that can do that on the fly the controllers in flash cards and USB sticks don't. So by formatting instead of just deleting all you perform the wearleveling which should in theory extend the life of the card.

FWIW you can also very often recover photos "deleted" from an SD card unless it has been formatted.

You can still recover files from formatted cards and disks with ease even if you have just done the "quick" format. A quick format just removes the file allocation table (FAT) leaving all of the sectors that actually contain data untouched. Any program that can rawread the device can pull every thing that wasn't in the FAT sectors off and since the various disk formats are well documented it is possible to mostly reconstruct the FAT. For image files you will be able to recover all of them as they are too bit to fit into the slack space in the FAT nodes that are used in modern file systems. For a more general purpose disk like the hard drive in your computer you would end up losing some very small files that were smaller than were substantially smaller than a single sector as those would have been stored in the FAT so as to not waste an entire sector. In theory one can recover files from the "long" format where each sector is overwritten but that requires some sophisticated hardware and skills that most lack. If you really want things gone for sure multiple cycles of overwrites with all 0s, then all 1s, then "random" data will work.

[Larrymc]

Frequently deleting or formating SD card will reduce its life time because the new data will always be written again at the same bit cell locations. Waiting until the card is full to format it will increase its life time because the number of R/W operation per cell will be less.

My same SD cards are steaming on along after over 5yrs of constant use and formatting several times per week during most weeks. Filling the cards and then downloading is a total PITA for me. So if you feel you need to jump through extra hoops during your file saving process have at it.