a6000 - format or erase?

[Skinny Dennis]

New to the a6000.

 

I'm a long time Nikon DSLR user, and when I'm done xfering pics I typically reformat the card in camera.

 

What's the recommendation for the a6000? Delete from the menu or reformat? Manual not of much help.

 

Thanks!

[Snowfun]

I'd vote for reformat.

I assume (sic) this to be preferable but I confess ignorance of the evidence base.I do know that on my blackmagic (2.5k) simply deleting clips from the SSD (out of camera) causes (or at least contributes to) chaos and dropped frames.

Reformatting (in camera) also causes chaos if one hasn't transferred the clips but that's another story...

[Skinny Dennis]

My main concern is that the camera may be keeping track of something that would be a pita to lose. I suppose I could try it and see if it creates problems.

[Follow the Lens]

always always always reformat in the camera

[olemartinorg]

Yes, format in the camera. Formatting starts with a blank slate each time, and that is much more preferable than starting out with a file system where a lot of files have been deleted.

 

I recently spoke with a colleague who told me about when the local police force invested in their first digital cameras (when she worked there). They just deleted pictures off the camera after importing them, and after a while the memory cards started corrupting images and dropping data. They found out that formatting the cards didn't cause this problem, at least not that early on.

 

But, if i recall correctly, you can store camera settings on the SD card (at least on my A7II, it may just be the same for the A6000), so you'll lose those if you reformat.

[Skinny Dennis]

Got it, reformat in camera.

 

Thanks!

[Golem]

The camera is not keeping track of anything that

goes away when you reformat. The "image database"

belongs to the images on that card, but not to

the camera itself. After all, if you swap cards

during a shoot, no problem arises.

 

Many users keep the file numbering on the default

which is sequential. The camera keeps track of its

number sequence regardless of how many cards you

might swap out. A reformatted card is just another

card as far as the camera's brain is concerned.

 

`

[Guest all8]

Sony is using FAT32 file system format. Its very simple, so formatting in-camera or using a PC should not matter - there is no magic or special settings that I'm aware of regarding FAT32 (and I've looked a few times). In terms of future write performance to the SD-Card, there should be no practical difference between deleting all-files or formatting. If however you only delete some files then the File System on the SD-Card will become fragmented over time, and eventually that fragmentation will result in slower write performance.

 

With the Sony A7ii (and probably the A6000 too) formatting will wipe out Memory items M1..M4 which is a little annoying. There might be other settings saved on the SD-Card too? But, as these exist on the SD-Card you can back them up and restore them, which is handy perhaps? Therefore deleting all-files does offer some benefit, and can be a little faster than formatting.

[Skinny Dennis]

I'm going to format in-camera, this is what I'm in the habit of doing with my Nikon gear.

 

One thing I just noticed it's not retaining; video file naming restarts from zero if I reformat. Just have to be careful when I download then rename the keepers.