Formatting a micro sd card

How long should it take to format a 256 G card for use in security camera. Its a new card in a w10 desktop nothing else happening been at least1 hr so far and at 50% ! ( i can do the maths…  another hour to wait but why) i should have better things to do on a saturday night but there you go

That doesn’t sound right. My GoPro Session will format its 128Gb card in a matter of seconds.

Seconds

Sounds too long. Genuinely faulty or … https://bulkmemorycards.com/identifying-counterfeit-microsd-cards/

Yep. If I were you I wouldn’t even try using that card.

Seconds  – definitely sounds moody

Yeah +1, I got a new sandisk 256gb, it formatted in essentially zero seconds

Depends if you selected to do a quick or a full format.

A full format overwrites every block and will take forever. In theory it’s slightly more safe since you will know if there is a problem before writing real data to it.

PS use this utility to format your SD cards in future, it ensures the partition alignment is correct, sometimes it can massively improve the performance:

SD Memory Card Formatter for Windows/Mac

It’s made by the SD Association, 100% legit, they basically maintain the ‘SD’ standards.

I often need to format cards at work. A 16gb card on a full format takes 20 minutes/ half an hour so 256gb is going to take a while

I’ve never formatted one in the traditional sense, I. E. In windows or some sort of disk utility on the PC…

… but the one in my dash cam, the dash cam has a format option in it’s menu and it’s pretty much instant, so I guess that’s a ‘quick format’ of some sort.

Quite a few hours unless you tick the quick format option then a couple of seconds.

People format SD cards? Who knew.

But yeah, as others have said. A Quick format will be, well, quick, it’s just laying down the file system. A Full format checks every square and can take a long time. Exactly how long is “it depends,” some cards are faster than others, some card reader interfaces are faster than others.

Counterfeit cards are commonplace. Always buy a known brand from a reputable source. If you’re buying from Amazon avoid anything that says something akin to “hassle-free packaging,” you want retail packaging. Brown box cards could have come from anywhere, hacking a 16GB card’s firmware to report itself as a 256GB card is not exceptionally difficult.

 If you’re buying from Amazon avoid anything that says something akin to “hassle-free packaging,” you want retail packaging. Brown box cards could have come from anywhere, hacking a 16GB card’s firmware to report itself as a 256GB card is not exceptionally difficult.

I don’t buy SD cards or USB drives from Amazon anymore. I had a counterfeit USB drive about 10 years ago. It came in realistic looking packaging and worked fine at first but then kept crashing. Obviously, the firmware had been hacked and it was a cheap small card that reported itself as a much larger one so when it reached capacity, it crashed. The problem with Amazon is that you can buy from a reputable seller but be sent an item supplied by a different seller, apparently Amazon just put all the items with the same product code into one bin regardless of the source.

People format SD cards? Who knew.

Apparently it’s needed for some usage types. Although I’m a little fuzzy on the technicalities…something to do with it continuously recording and overwriting, they also say to use ‘specific types’ of SD card, presumably higher spec ones in terms of speed and endurance for constant writes, which I kind of get, but I can’t see what difference that would make, assuming the speed rating is ‘fast enough’ other than a higher endurance SD card lasting longer before it’s ‘worn out’ from too many writes?:

https://support.nextbase.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360018104518-Do-I-need-to-format-my-SD-card

Presumably an SD card in a CCTV cam would be the same usage case as a dash cam…

I think – think – that this might be a throwback to older hardware which may have had compatibility quirks. Like, your camera’s SD card glitches, format in the camera itself rather than a PC. If there’s a modern need for it then I’ve missed it.

I’m calling bullshit on that entire nextbase article, on several levels.

I’m calling bullshit on that entire nextbase article, on several levels.

I agree on the surface… one of the things in the instructions said only to use ‘nextbase’ SD cards, and I thought, yeh, whatever!

Nextbase certainly don’t manufacture flash memory, there’s nothing special about a re-branded SD card which will probably be something like a reasonably high spec sandisk card with nextbase branding printed on it..

Maybe they say that, as fake SD cards are such a big thing, lower spec cards masquerading as higher spec ones seems to be a common thing?

I dunno really… I can’t see why a high spec (asuming it’s genuine) SD card from a known good manufacturer would be any worse than the reccomended brand…

I’m just making tea, I’ll rip it apart after I’ve eaten. 🙂

Hey, I’m not saying I agree with the blurb, it all seems a bit ‘smoke and mirrors’ to me, assuming the SD card is high enough spec, and not a ‘fake’ of some sort, then read/write speed is covered (not all SD cards are equal in that respect).

The only other potential issue to my mind is ‘endurance’ aka how many times can each block be written to, which to my mind would simply mean a lower endurance card won’t last as long before it starts getting bad sectors/reduced capacity and potentially killing the card?

I actually have a vested interest in this subject, as I wouldn’t mind putting a bigger card in my dash cam, than the one it came with, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t use an appropriate sandisk or whatever card, assuming it’s genuine.

Should I format my SD card?
Yes. It is very important that your SD card is formatted regularly, for most customers we recommend formatting your SD card every 2-3 weeks using the cameras setup menu.

If your SD card requires formatting every fortnight, your device is broken.

What does it mean to format an SD card?
Put simply, formatting an SD card (or any other type of storage device) means that you are deleting all of the files from the drive in one go.

That’s not what it means. Not even put simply.

Why is it important to regularly format my SD card?
The reason we recommend you format your SD card every 2-3 weeks is because unlike ordinary video cameras, Dash Cams continuously record in a loop. The continuous writing and overwriting of files puts a lot of stress onto the SD card, if a card has not been designed for this very specific use…

So, a few things here.

1) Stress from high levels of writing to a solid state device was a genuine thing, largely resolved years ago.

2) If you’re continuously writing in a loop, what’s the point of “deleting files” as per the previous claim? The files delete themselves, in formatting the card you’re just adding yet more wear.

3) “Cards designed for this very specific use” is surely bollocks, it was little more than marketing in the days of spinnydisks. Writing to an SD card doesn’t require contiguous data, you can access any point on the card as easily as any other.

… it is far more likely to experience problems.

Ie, “if there’s a problem, it’s your card not our hardware.”

Please note: If you do a lot of driving, you will need to format your SD card more frequently than the average person. We recommend taxi drivers format their SD cards at least once a week for example.

More frequently than “never”?

What will happen if I don’t format my SD card?
If you fail to format your SD card for a prolonged period of time you could experience the following types of issues:

SD card error messages
Recording failure
Automatic recording failure
Frozen screen
Gaps between recordings
Corrupted or unplayable files
Failure to start-up and shutdown
Inoperable buttons
Even though these issues are far more common with Non-Nextbase branded SD cards, we strongly recommend formatting our SD cards frequently too.

Bull.

****ing.

Shit.

This is a flat-out lie. Expanding on “if there’s a problem, it’s your card not our hardware” we now have “we recommend you buy our cards and then subject them to needlessly excessive work so they wear out faster.” Yeah, and the horse you rode in on.

How do I format my SD card?
The option to format the SD card can usually be found inside the setup menu on your camera. For specific instructions for your device, consult the user manual for your Dash Cam. This can be downloaded via the support section on our website.

Hurrah, something actually sensible.

And, I’m not shooting the messenger, I agree with everything you posted there.

I see little argument for worrying about “endurance.” SanDisk cards have a ten year warranty. It’s not like you need 10 years worth of historical data on there if the cam manufacturers are advising you to format it weekly. What’s a large capacity branded uSD these days, twenty quid?

Well, indeed, it makes little sense, unless you assume the customer is using a ‘crappy or fake’ SD card…

People bang on about SSD drive endurance in some circles, but even when it comes to desktop gaming M.2 nvme drives etc… even cheaper ‘low’ endurance drives have so much ‘endurance’ it’s mathematicaly never going to be a real issue for the average user.

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me…

…unless a small capacity SD card doesn’t like being hammered with writes all the time, enough to affect the endurance.. but I’m skeptical on that, it is a slightly different usage scenario, when you have a ‘low’ capacity drive that’s constantly hammered and overwritten 24/7, I can only assume that has something to do with it.

Assuming we take that to be true, it’s a consumable. £20 for a part with a 10-year warranty is, what, 16p/month?

SSD endurance was an issue in the early days when they were both infant technology and bastard expensive. As you say, the maths overtook the risk pretty quickly as tech improved.

“Don’t use a crap/fake card” is solid advice, but can be expressed in considerably fewer words. 🙂 It feels a little like “only ever use OEM parts.” Like, on the one hand it’s a cynical cash-grab to tie you into buying more stuff from them; on the other if you take a car to a backstreet garage for a service and they do an oil change using used chip fat, then you hit the Internet a week later to whine about how your 12-month old Octavia died on it’s arse, then…

Nextbase stuff is crap, I’ve had three, and still got a 522GW in use because it was expensive with the additional rear cam etc.

Cougar2

I’m just making tea, I’ll rip it apart after I’ve eaten.

The real reason for the article is because Nextbase stuff regularly corrupts the SD cards.

The problem with Amazon is that you can buy from a reputable seller but be sent an item supplied by a different seller, apparently Amazon just put all the items with the same product code into one bin regardless of the source.

Yeah this can be a bit of a pain in cases like this where you can no longer rely on the reputation of the seller.

If worried, either don’t buy from Amazon or make sure it’s shipped by the seller directly not shipped by Amazon (FBA)