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SD or CF cards -- erase or reformat?

Jon Mark

New member
When erasing images from your cards, which do you use most often? Anyone with problems or issues with one or the other?

Thanks
 

Tom Yi

New member
I use a card reader and remove, instead of copying, the images onto my computer.
That way I don' t reformat or need to erase. Haven't had a single problems with 20,000 or so shots.
 

Don Lashier

New member
Tom Yi said:
I use a card reader and remove, instead of copying, the images onto my computer.
That way I don' t reformat or need to erase. Haven't had a single problems with 20,000 or so shots.
Same here. Some folks swear that you should reformat in the camera every time but I never do - 40,000 shots and no problem.

- DL
 
Another vote for simple delete - I use Chris Breeze's Downloader application to automate the process, and have it set to delete the files after copying them. Haven't had any problems either.
 

dhphoto

New member
Tom Yi said:
I use a card reader and remove, instead of copying, the images onto my computer.
That way I don' t reformat or need to erase. Haven't had a single problems with 20,000 or so shots.

I wouldn't dream of moving the images off the card until they were safely backed up at least twice. Having them on the CF is extra insurance IMHO

David
 

Rolandvdb

New member
format

I use both because I'm getting old :) and forget now and then something, on the SD card I use always low level format in the MKIIN because securrity and the fastest write and read speed :)
keep it up, great site
 
Hi David,

dhphoto said:
I wouldn't dream of moving the images off the card until they were safely backed up at least twice. Having them on the CF is extra insurance IMHO

David

I think this is a good point to consider in your overall workflow. I do make a point of not putting additional images on a card until the images from it are properly backed up. I have file recovery programs that can be used to reclaim those deleted images if some glitch should occur before I get to that point.

But doing it your way would certainly be a little safer, with a little more margin for error and memory lapse!
 

Nill Toulme

New member
DL Pro makes it easy to back up... I have it set to copy the files both to my RAID and to an external drive in one swell foop. Then the RAID backs itself up to another external overnight. So I start with two copies immediately and by the next day have three.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net
 

Sid Jervis

pro member
My workflow - on site, image files are transferred to a local portable hard drive. The card is not erased or formatted at this time.
Then when back at base, using iView MP - the images are transferred from the portable drive to a Raid set of drives, then I format the cards in the camera ready for the next shoot.

$0.02
 

dhphoto

New member
I never leave a location without having at least two, preferably three copies of every RAW file - CF, Laptop and preferably DVD+R too.

One of the joys of digital IMHO is knowing you will never get your shots f@@@@d up the processing!

David
 

Josh Liechty

New member
When shooting away from home, I copy to the internal hard disk of a PowerBook G4 and burn a second copy to DVD-R before deleting the images from the card. At home, I copy to an internal hard disk and burn a DVD-R before deleting the photos. In either case, I prefer to do all of the backing up, initial culling, etc. with the card removed from the computer to avoid confusion and prevent mistakenly working from the card instead of the internal HD. Since the images will not have been deleted yet at that point, it is faster and easier for me to simply reformat the card in the camera than to insert it back into the computer a second time to delete the images.
 

Chuck Fry

New member
My SOP is to copy the images to a hard drive using a card reader, then copy them again to another drive in my Photoshop, Lightroom, or iPhoto working directory, and only then reformat the card in the camera. If I'm really being a good boy, I'll burn a backup DVD while I'm at it.
 
Tom Yi said:
I use a card reader and remove, instead of copying, the images onto my computer.
That way I don' t reformat or need to erase. Haven't had a single problems with 20,000 or so shots.

The problem with this, is that if a copy error occurs, you original is gone and it stresses the file system over time as disk maintainence overhead can grow making your cards smaller.
 
Don Lashier said:
Same here. Some folks swear that you should reformat in the camera every time but I never do - 40,000 shots and no problem.

- DL

Years ago, lens than 2000 shots into digital I had problems with not formatting and getting a corrupt CF card.

But the real reason I format rather than delete is that it is faster. Less than 5 seconds versus 30 seconds makes the choice simple.

Also, always format in camera. I once formatted using a card reader and XP wrote the FAT in the wrong location and the camera continued using the old FAT. Hence, the computer could not see the files as the computer was using a different file table than the camera.

Add in, that an error is far more likely to occur during deletion than formatting. Why? Again, 5 seconds is 1/6 as many seconds as 30 seconds and reduces the chance of error when errors occur 1 every 10,000 seconds.

But in the end, do what works. If you get burned, then come back to the issue.

enjoy,

Sean
 
dhphoto said:
I wouldn't dream of moving the images off the card until they were safely backed up at least twice. Having them on the CF is extra insurance IMHO

David

I will second this. I do not reformat the card until I have at a minimum spot checked my images in a RAW converter to validate a successful copy.
 

Will_Perlis

New member
I copy, spot check, back up to another drive, spot check, and then do a quick format in the 1DMk2. I notice the new SD700 will allow a low-level format (that takes much longer) so I can do that if I have to.

No problems since my first digital, the Nikon 900, from the very late 90's.
 

Dennis Lathem

New member
I copy my cards to a Portable Storage Device. I confirm the copy and put the card in my card wallet. I get home and once I have copied all of my days images from the PSD to my PC hard drive I format my cards in the camera they are used in and I am ready for the next shoot. On the rare occasion I run out of cards during a day I will double check the transfer on a card and use it again in the field. However, since I carry 20GB of cards in the field this is becomming more and more rare.

I choose to format my CF and SD cards in the cameras they will be used in. I try to avoid letting a PC or PSD write to my CF or SD cards. The only exception being during a file recovery operation.

My 1DmkIIn has a low level format option for the SD card. I did a low level on my SD the first time I used it in this camera, but now I just run the regular format.
 

Kirk Darling

New member
1. Download (Downloader Pro) to hard drive
2. Back up hard drive
3. Put that card back into the repple-depple for another job.

When I pull it for another job, at that point I'll reformat it in the camera at the same time I'm doing the pre-job checkout of the equipment I'm using for that job. By this time, I will have worked its previous images enough to know I can safely reformat it.
 

Daniel Harrison

pro member
Format.

I always format the card. I copy the files over and then when I sure that everything is OK, I stick the card back in the camera and format it. That way It is all nice and clean to start with. And it is just as fast as deleting the images. You Should avoid deleting the images using the camera becuase if the file name has changed it won't delete them, so I think it is always better to format.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Gary C-G said:
I always keep the images on the card until thwy are copied to at least two other locations.
Same and never erase one of these two copies until a back-up is made on DvD(s) and until these stored in a safe at the bank. Peace of mind...
 
D

Doug Kerr

Guest
Hi, Mac,

I have never reformatted a CF card (and I have a dozen cards, with many tens of thousands of images involved), with the exception of once when I did it as part of a special test involving cluster size.

I have never heard a convincing reason why it would be advantageous to reformat the cards as a way of removing all files, or to do so occasionally for prophylactic reasons.

Arguments relating to "fragmentation" of files are spurious. If all (or essentially all) files have been removed from a storage volume, any new file will be written in contiguous clusters.

Of course, I never wish to remove all files, as I have pemanent identification information on all my CF cards.
 
D

Doug Kerr

Guest
Hi, David,

dhphoto said:
I wouldn't dream of moving the images off the card until they were safely backed up at least twice. Having them on the CF is extra insurance IMHO
Same here. I do not delete files from the CF card until they are (a) on my hard drive, (b) have been backed up from the hard drive onto my "mirror" system, and (c) have been backed up onto DVD under my regular backup system.

Among other things, this means that rarely would I be removing all image files from any particular card. In addition, I have perment identification information on each card I never wish to remove.

Best regards,

Doug
 

Mike Spinak

pro member
After I've finished copying and back up copying my files, I erase all the files in-camera. (I also delete individual reject pics from the card in-camera, while I'm shooting.) I've only reformatted once, to test it.

Across six cards, a couple cameras, and several tens of thousands of pictures, I haven't had a problem, yet.

Mike

www.mikespinak.com
 

RoyVarley

New member
Having copied the files from the cards - first to portable storage, then to the PC - I just use simple delete in the camera - "erase all images". I think I formatted the cards once a couple of years ago.
 

Mark Adams

New member
A little help please. Why would anyone need a special program to download from a cf card? I'm on a Mac and I just drag the pic files to an empty folder on my desktop and copy the files to the new folder, open a few in PS, copy the folder to another hard drive for backup, then drag the pic files on the cf card to the trash, empty trash and eject the card, No problems 4 years. What does the special program do?
 

Will_Perlis

New member
Mark,

Windoze will do the same thing. It's when you get into automatic re-naming, re-numbering, etc. of large numbers of pictures on multiple cards that the various downloading programs become useful.
 
I agree with Will. I use a bash shell script to copy files off the CF card, then rename them, then copy them to another physical drive, and then move the initial copy to a review directory. Simply execute the script and everything is done. The programs are similar in nature, just less flexible (the closest program for XP I have found does everything I want but rename the files correctly so I am sticking with the shell script for now).

enjoy,

Sean
 
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