How often does a microSD card needs to be formatted?

Module 79L

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The reason why I'm asking this, besides being a useful thread for other people, is because it's been 2 months, over 350GB and almost 60 hours of recording time since I last formatted mine.

Are there any pros and cons of frequent formatting?
How can it affect the card?
Should we just format them randomly or when something goes wrong?
Does it depend on the amount of work the card is subjected to?
 
anytime you're copying files off I'd suggest formatting the card
Then I'd have to format the card every day. Isn't it too much formatting?
 
If you have a camera that doesn't corrupt the card frequently then there is no reason to format the card frequently, it's just a safety measure for those cameras that do corrupt their cards since it is not always obvious that a card is corrupted until you loose a file. It will put extra wear on the card so shouldn't be done regularly without reason.

It's been about 8 months since I formatted the card in my mini 0806.

Formatting used to keep the cards running at useable speed but these days the cards are far faster than necessary even after they have slowed down due to fragmentation.
 
If you have a camera that doesn't corrupt the card frequently then there is no reason to format the card frequently, it's just a safety measure for those cameras that do corrupt their cards since it is not always obvious that a card is corrupted until you loose a file. It will put extra wear on the card so shouldn't be done regularly without reason.
That's what I thought.
 
After the initial format and testing of any memory card I use in any device I never format again unless I have a reason to - such as moving a card from a dSLR to a P&S, or between a Canon to a Nikon, from a G1W-H to an A118-C, etc. Never experienced any issues.

If a card is suspect I'll reformat and retest but that's about it.

Edit: Or when @jokiin says to as part of a F/W update. :D
 
average person probably doesn't copy the files off anywhere near that often
It only takes one to do it...
I do because it's faster to download 3, 5 or 8GB at once than 20 or 30GB.
 
It only takes one to do it...
I do because it's faster to download 3, 5 or 8GB at once than 20 or 30GB.

we generally recommend formatting after files have been copied off as Mac users have a problem with the junk a Mac can leave behind on the card that can trip the cameras up, majority of people don't copy files off daily, even so a quick format doesn't erase data and isn't going to wear your card out, effectively it just flags the data as ok to overwrite

if you were doing a full format each time then perhaps you'd need to reconsider, nobody seems to want to wait the time a full format takes though
 
we generally recommend formatting after files have been copied off as Mac users have a problem with the junk a Mac can leave behind on the card that can trip the cameras up, majority of people don't copy files off daily, even so a quick format doesn't erase data and isn't going to wear your card out, effectively it just flags the data as ok to overwrite

if you were doing a full format each time then perhaps you'd need to reconsider, nobody seems to want to wait the time a full format takes though
I was referring to quick formatting, including formatting on the cameras.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but first of all, we should know what do we want to obtain from a format. As @jokiin has mentioned, there is a difference between quick and full format, but not only in terms of time but also on what it happens.
While the quick format will simply clear the filesystem table so all the space on SD card will appear as available (the data is still on the card), the full format will also check for errors and remove all the data from the card by writing zeros (for example).
The problem is with the card wear and the fact that not all of them have wear levelling. For example, suppose that you write 1 GB (among 32 GB available) and then you format it ...and repeat this process several times (100 ...5000). Then, the wear of those memory locations is higher compared with all the card (and so, a higher risk for the card to fail).
 
I also archive my recordings daily and that's one of the reasons I don't format unless it becomes necessary. Really it's the same reasoning for just about all flash memory devices. If I suspect the card as opposed to a camera crash causing the corruption, I usually follow up with a full capacity write/read test. Also if you don't check the files on the card regularly, you just might be unpleasantly surprised one day when you actually do need the footage and find out that it isn't there due to something that went wrong a week ago.

KuoH

The problem is with the card wear and the fact that not all of them have wear levelling. For example, suppose that you write 1 GB (among 32 GB available) and then you format it ...and repeat this process several times (100 ...5000). Then, the wear of those memory locations is higher compared with all the card (and so, a higher risk for the card to fail).
 
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