How often do you format your SD cards?

All the articles that I have read on the internet which state that deleting images from the memory card whilst in the camera is a bad idea seem to be talking about deleting a single image at a time. If you have a couple of hundred images on a memory card and download those image to your computer and then put the memory card back into your camera and then from the camera menus navigate to “Delete All Images On Card” and then press delete, is that still a bad thing to do, and if so, why?
 
I format the card when I put it into the camera, after images have been downloaded AND backed up.

I never delete individual images from the cards on the camera either.
 
L320Rio said:
All the articles that I have read on the internet which state that deleting images from the memory card whilst in the camera is a bad idea seem to be talking about deleting a single image at a time. If you have a couple of hundred images on a memory card and download those image to your computer and then put the memory card back into your camera and then from the camera menus navigate to “Delete All Images On Card” and then press delete, is that still a bad thing to do, and if so, why?
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Deleting single images will increase disk fragmentation meaning that files may get split into multiple parts (to fit the gaps) rather than stored as a single contiguous file. This will lead to a slight reduction in available space on the card (it's taken up by the data which is needed to point to the next bit of the file) and slightly slower read/write times (as it splits files/rejoind them).

This will only likely become a problem as the card gets close to full, so in reality not a problem unless you work almost continuously with full or nearly full cards.
 
snerkler said:
Also, I’ve seen it mentioned a lot that deleting images rather than formatting can lead to corruption however how true that is I don’t know.
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As I wrote earlier, formatting is far more efficient than deleting individual files. When formatting, nothing more happens than that an empty table of contents is written.

(The contents of the files are not touched, they are just no longer visible and the space is reused when needed).

Deleting all files at once is OK, because it does not fragment the file system. But it is more cumbersome. No "holes" are created. In the existing table of contents, the names are just marked individually as deleted. The file with the photo is also not touched in terms of content.
 
lemo said:
As I wrote earlier, formatting is far more efficient than deleting individual files. When formatting, nothing more happens than that an empty table of contents is written.

(The contents of the files are not touched, they are just no longer visible and the space is reused when needed).

Deleting all files at once is OK, because it does not fragment the file system. But it is more cumbersome. No "holes" are created. In the existing table of contents, the names are just marked individually as deleted. The file with the photo is also not touched in terms of content.
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So in my case, I'll take an average of 30-40 shots on a day out, and I'll check them in the viewer. Any pictures that are obviously poor will be deleted while I'm out, and the remaining will be transferred to the PC back home. The card is then formatted before the next use. Does this sound a healthy way of working for the card? Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB.
 
Crotal Bell said:
Does this sound a healthy way of working for the card?
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I don't see a problem there.
I assume that a modern camera can handle a primitive file system that essentially already existed in the 1990s without making mistakes. ;)

And if not, a corrupt file system is removed during formatting anyway.
 
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I have two cards in, one 128gb Sandisk Extreme pro(photos) and a 64gb Sandisk extreme pro(video) and remove them after each use, download to PC then format and reinstall in the camera, its rated to do this for about half a million times doing this so well worth the 40 odd quid for decent cards, but I believe Lexar are a little better, (the ones I had a couple of years ago were rubbish)
 
I shoot motorsport, which can involve burst shooting. It's a nightmare if I forget to format the card before a shoot.

I always format before a shoot, but I only do it in the camera to prevent any write issues.
 
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