canon SX10is - max memory card capacity

John Navas wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:13:47 GMT, "David J Taylor"
[]
Just to clarify, formatting a card as NTFS in your computer is
likely to render it unusable in a camera.

Not unusable, just in need of formatting,
and only if you deliberately choose to format in NTFS.

I haven't actually tried that to see whether the camera rejects it
altogether. I guess it would depend on the particular camera.

Also, NTFS is not recommended for flash
because it will wear it out more rapidly.

However, for these very large USB memory sticks, as opposed to camera
cards, I prefer the reliability of NTFS even if it shortens the life. I
only use the sticks occasionally, not every day.

Cheers,
David

John Navas wrote:
[]
Regardless, what I do is erase, not format,
usually by Moving, rather than Copying,
the folder of images to the computer.

The advantage of erasing over formatting is that
recovery of images is still possible.

Use the Format command provided by your camera.

That works too, but I don't recommend it, because there's
a greater risk of accidentally losing images.

I'm just the opposite, John. I would only use "Move" in exceptional
circumstances. I normally "Copy" to the computer, so that I can verify
the transfer if needed. Only once the copies on the computer are checked
would I write to the memory card.

I use "format in the camera" so that a clean directory structure is ready
for next time. I haven't checked whether any of the file recovery
utilities would work on an in-camera formatted card, and unfortunately I
don't have time to check right now.

Cheers,
David

Martin Brown wrote:
John Navas wrote:
"Flash Memory Fragmentation -- Myths and Facts"
http://www.wizcode.com/articles/comments/flash_memory_fragmentation_myths_and_facts
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Myth: Flash cards unlike hard drives do not have movable parts so
defragmentation is useless.

Conclusion: Fragmentation has a serious impact on flash card
performance especially during write operations and when the file
system is heavily fragmented across many different flash pages.

It has to be pathologically fragmented before there is a significant
performance hit. How do you think it does load levelling internally?

The seek time on a solid state disk is tiny. It is possible that if
you
have lots of small to medium size files that come and go on a portable
computer SSD that things might deteriorate to the point where
defragmentation is worthwhile once in a blue moon.

But a digicam is typically used to add files sequentially on blank
media
until the card is full and then the results copied to a master
computer.
Formatting the media on insertion into the camera ensures
compatibility.
Some cameras can be tetchy about media previously used in other brand
or
models with roughly similar but not identical naming conventions.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Myth: Defragmentation shortens flash memory life span.

Conclusion: Defragmentation indeed increases the number of flash
media write-cycles. With modern flash cards life cycle and wear
leveling this does not represent a potential problem as it takes
decades for the sectors to start becoming bad.

A million or so write cycles typically. Wasting a high proportion of
them defragmenting to no good end is not particularly sensible even
on a
portable computing device. Benchmark it and you will not see a lot of
difference before and after.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Myth: Backing up the data of a flash card, formatting and then
restoring it again will produce a file system free of fragmentation.

Conclusion: Using the backup/restore approach will not achieve the
same results as using a well designed file system defragmenter.

True enough, but it is probably adequate if you are nervous about
having
the file system contiguous. A proper defragmenter may try to put the
most frequently used files at the fastest access position on the disk
but for an SSD this makes little sense.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Data reliability on fragmented vs. non-fragmented file systems

Conclusion: Keeping a file system free of fragmentation significantly
increases the chances of data recovery.

This one is true, but only because some of the data recovery programs
are rather simple minded.

Note that that site is trying to sell you a defragging program, so of
_course_ they are going to "prove" that defragging is needed.

John Navas wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:33:30 GMT, "David J Taylor"
wrote in
:

John Navas wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:32:37 -0700, John McWilliams
[]
Erasing or reformatting a camera card on the computer is not:

a) a recommended practice
I disagree.
Certainly, formatting in the computer is not a practice I would recommend,
as it may well cause problems such as formatting the card with a file
system which the camera does not understand, rendering the card unusable.

That's possible, but unlikely, and easily avoided.

Regardless, what I do is erase, not format,
usually by Moving, rather than Copying,
the folder of images to the computer.

The advantage of erasing over formatting is that
recovery of images is still possible.

Bzzzt. Wrong on two counts:

A.) You (at least, I) can recover from a reformatted card
B.) If you do not erase or reformat on computer, you have a backup on
the card until you reformat in camera.

--
john mcwilliams

John Navas wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:33:30 GMT, "David J Taylor"


Use the Format command provided by your camera.

That works too, but I don't recommend it, because there's
a greater risk of accidentally losing images.

David had it right. There's less over all risk of losing images by
waiting to clear the card once it's back in the camera.

--
john mcwilliams

John Navas wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:09:00 +1000, Bob Larter
wrote in :

John McWilliams wrote:

I won't even get into wear leveling, but reformatting is way preferable
to erasing all, as you always start with a clean slate, no
fragmentation, and *it is way faster on my cameras* (Canons).
Exactly. I always reformat (in-camera) after downloading the files to my
PC. I've never had any performance problems with any of my CF cards.

Complete erasure produces the same benefit with less risk of losing
images.

No it doesn't and no it doesn't.

[see other parts of threads for specific refutation]

John Navas wrote:
[]
Move only deletes the original _after_ the file has been successfully
read from the source and written to the destination -- there is no
more risk than Copy and Delete.

There is no verify option with the Move command - if the write to
destination disk has silently failed you've lost your data.

A clear directory structure is also created by complete erasure.

The standard DCF (Design rule for Camera File system) structu
/
+----- DCIM
+----- CAMERA [actual name dependent on camera & sequence]
Deleting (as when Moving) either the CAMERA folder or the DCIM folder
will remove _all_ fragmentation.

I still prefer the "format in the camera later" method, as it leave the
possibility to verify data after transferring.

Cheers,
David

John Navas wrote:
[]
True, but when was the last time you had a permanent hard disk error?
I've not had one in several years, and if I did get one, I'd have far
more serious problems than a lost image. Especially with a SMART
enabled hard drive, it's just not enough risk for me to worry about,
especially since I could undelete the images on the flash drive.

Tempting fate answering that question, John! Not often, but possibly once
a year. Certainly frequently enough that I would /never/ use "move"
rather than "copy" on any critical data (such as shots or GPS tracks from
a once-in-a-lifetime holiday).

David

John Turco wrote:
David J Taylor wrote:

edited for brevity

I use a mixture of 2GB SD and 4GB SD-HC now. For my purposes I haven't
found card speed to be a limiting factor - the camera buffer is enough,
although the faster reading of higher-speed cards and an optimised USB 2.0
hi-speed setup is nice.

Hello, David:

My own purchasing decisions have been, primarily, based upon price and
capacity. Branding isn't a huge factor, nor is speed.

I do own three SDHC cards (two "A-Data" 4GB ones and a Toshiba 8GB), but,
only my Pentax K100D is compatible with them. Their packages remain sealed,
as I rarely use the DSLR.

Test it *very* carefully before going over the 2GB & 4GB fill
boundaries. I lost some important shots a couple of years back when my
istD decided that although it would apparently work with 2GB cards it
would ignore the second GB. After a while there were aways the same
number of shots left on the card

It helpfully flashed up an "image not saved message" on the rear LCD
screen which I wasn't looking at on an SLR in the heat of the moment.

Although, it's "merely" 6 megapixels, the K100D can produce JPEG files,
well over 4MB apiece-- and I even have two images, above 5MB. They're all
considerably larger, than anything my P&S cameras ever create (including
the Kodak V603, which is also 6MP).

That is more likely to be down to the choice of the JPEG compression
parameters used by the K100D. Canons tend to be among the most
conservative highest quality and pan out at almost 1MB/mpixel JPEGs for
high contrast detailed scenes (even on some of the Ixus P&S).

Shooting RAW, in the K100D, would further increase the demands for storage
space; then, my SDHC media should come in rather handy.

I find battery life is worse with some of the larger cards. YMMV

Regards,
Martin Brown

John Navas wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:57:22 GMT, "David J Taylor"
wrote in
:

John Navas wrote:
[]
True, but when was the last time you had a permanent hard disk error?
I've not had one in several years, and if I did get one, I'd have far
more serious problems than a lost image. Especially with a SMART
enabled hard drive, it's just not enough risk for me to worry about,
especially since I could undelete the images on the flash drive.

Tempting fate answering that question, John! Not often, but possibly once
a year.

Yikes! What hard disks are you using?!
You might want to consider using better drives.

I see one every couple of years, but nothing like that often on my own
machines. The last one was a neighbours PC that was taking in excess of
15 minutes to boot into Windows 2k. Most of his data survived.

But even at that failure rate, the risk of hard disk failure between the
time you copy files to a computer and the time you reformat the card in
your camera is still very very small as compared to the risk after
you're reused the card.

Which is why you should archive to two independent media types before
reusing the card (and verify that the media matches the disk image). I
have seen too much lost data in my time to take chances.

It isn't enough that the thumnails appear to be OK in the directory view
you should view the transferred images as a slideshow to force a decode
of the main file rather than the header thumbnail.

Certainly frequently enough that I would /never/ use "move"
rather than "copy" on any critical data (such as shots or GPS tracks from
a once-in-a-lifetime holiday).

I'd just undelete the files on the flash card.

If you really care that much, then you should be rotating flash cards,
not reusing them for an extended period of time, and immediately copying
images to multiple backups. Not to mention only using top grade flash
cards in addition to other top grade components. Is that what you do?

Pretty much. Grandfather, father, son cycling of media keeps the
original images around long enough to ensure a full backup. I would
never dream of using move on valuable files either.

Next time around I will probably switch to hardware RAID.

Regards,
Martin Brown