Thread: Formatting?

I re-read the specs on the Sandisk SD. It has 1,000,000 hours MTBF. It has 100,000 write/erase cycles. I know there was a million mentioned somewhere. Even at the higher speeds, Memory of any type is always the slowest part of the microprocessor circuits.

Just trying to educate everyone.

http://alumni.cs.ucr.edu/~amitra/sdcard/ProdManualSDCardv1.9.pdf

Originally Posted by Don G

Should you format your SD card each time before exporting or importing wp, tracks, groups,etc? What does formatting actually do?

It is very unlikely that a SD Card (with possible corrupt data) could cause problems in the unit when importing/exporting waypoints, routes, tracks.....

Conversely, corrupt data on a SD Card when performing a software update "could" lead to a unit system crash....

It takes 20 minutes to format a card....

It's worth my 20 minutes....

Rickie

Originally Posted by rnvinc

It is very unlikely that a SD Card (with possible corrupt data) could cause problems in the unit when importing/exporting waypoints, routes, tracks.....

Conversely, corrupt data on a SD Card when performing a software update "could" lead to a unit system crash....

It takes 20 minutes to format a card....

It's worth my 20 minutes....

Rickie

Rickie, why 20 minutes? I right click on the drive that my SD card is in, then choose format.It takes just a second to format. Am I doing something wrong?

You can also use the same SD card formatter that is in the HumminbirdPC software. Just right click on the SD card icon and select format.

Although I have never formatted a 32GB SDHC; it should not take 20 minutes to format an SD card. 20 seconds maybe.

Originally Posted by Don G

Rickie, why 20 minutes? I right click on the drive that my SD card is in, then choose format.It takes just a second to format. Am I doing something wrong?

Works that way for me too Don.

Originally Posted by Don G

Rickie, why 20 minutes? I right click on the drive that my SD card is in, then choose format.It takes just a second to format. Am I doing something wrong?

No Don .. You are not doing anything wrong...you are using the formatter provided in your pc's operating system... and there is nothing wrong with that...

I use the formatter from the SD Association here...
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/

Reading the documentation from the SD Association ....they say using "generic" formatting tools can lead to ... "quote"... "less than optimal performance from your memory cards"..."unquote"...

The free formatting download from the SD Association has tools for different formatting processes including "quick format" and "full format"... And others I cannot remember...

It is my guess that most generic formatting tools (such as the 1 in your pc's operating system) is some form of this "quick format" procedure also offerred in the SD Association's download...

I use the "full format" procedure in the SD Association download... which takes 10 - 30 minutes depending on the size card I am formatting....

I would certainly think the SD Association would have more knowledge in formatting SD cards than Windows or any other generic formatting tool....

This is all just my opinion... But my $3000 HB's operating system is worth me taking the time to use a formatting tool from a reputable organization like the SD Association...

Rickie

That explains it Rickie. I had forgotten about the quick versus full formatting (you can tell that I have been using the quick option for a while…).

One of the good things about using the formatter from the SD Association is that it will work with both SD and SDHC cards. If you use a standard formatter and it is not SDHC compatible you may experience some of that “less than optimal performance” that they spoke of. I was told that the HumminbirdPC program uses that same formatter program.

Ouick format only erases the MFT files. If you want best performance from your SD, do as Rickie does.