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SD Card Question

Gary P

Member
Traveling with my M9 and Sony A7. My question is, can an SD card be formatted to different camera systems? Formatted to the Leica and when emptied formatted to Sony? And back and forth? Thanks in advance!! Gary
 

bradhusick

Active member
Yes, you can reformat a card as many times as you like. There is a write-limit on all solid state media, but it's a huge number that you'll never reach.
 

Gary P

Member
Thank you Brad! That really helps. I have SD cards but have never cross formatted them. I'm taking a big trip and want to gather all the cards I have for my systems (canon, sony, Olympus, leica) and use them interchangeably between the Sony and Leica cameras. This is very helpful, thank you!
 

bradhusick

Active member
You're welcome. Don't forget to reformat them when moving between different cameras. If you don't there is a chance for some file corruption.

Best practice is to download photos, then put card into camera, format (full, not quick) and go. Do not use "delete" photos. In fact, I never delete photos in the camera, ever.

Enjoy the big trip!
 

John Black

Active member
Use SD Formatter before inserting the card into a new camera, else there is a pretty good chance one camera will pick up the shot count from the last camera. This happened with my Canon 1Ds3 and Leica M9 if I got the cards confused.

The M9 is painfully fickle about SD/SDHC cards. My M9's and M9-P's bricked 5 or 6 SDHC cards to the point nothing could recognize them. And once the M9 had semi-bricked a card, that card was unstable from that point forward. I would use separate cards for each camera and not mix. Cards are cheap, no point in risking files. My $02...
 

jaapv

Subscriber Member
Only if you use overwrite, which does not make sense for other than forensic reasons, or if your wife knows how to use recovery software and you have something to hide. Or possibly for a knackered card. Otherwise the standard format is quite sufficient and quick.
 
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