Full SD Cards

Welshy74

Senior Member
Hi all. Was just wondering what you do when your SD cards are full and have been uploaded to your pc etc. Do you reformat and use again or do you replace and keep as an extra form of backup?
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Reformat in the camera and re-use... at current prices/sizes, saving as a backup would be the most expensive form of backup, and the least efficient available...
 

SteveH

Senior Member
I reformat and reuse - Like Fred says, using them as backup is expensive. I would consider using new cards and not reformatting if I were travelling and relying solely on a laptop to store my shots before returning home etc.
 

Spottydumplings

Senior Member
I replace. Depending on the size of the card that you buy it is not particularly expensive. I look at it in terms of when I was shooting film; only using a small[ish] card once does not work out any more expensive than buying a film and having it processed and let's face it they don't take up much space (as a back-up).
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
My cards never get full,they are uploaded to the PC after every session then formated in camera,if they are full before transfer its a lot of images to lose to a card fault.
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
I re-use after I'm certain the images have been copied from the card to multiple locations and are readable. When a card is available for re-use, it gets formatted in-camera before the next use.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
I re-use after I'm certain the images have been copied from the card to multiple locations and are readable. When a card is available for re-use, it gets formatted in-camera before the next use.

My method as well. I have 40-some cards of various sizes and speeds for different cameras, and will set full cards aside for several months (even a year) before I need to rotate it back into the camera and reformat it. Multiple cards are part of my overall back-up plan.
 

carguy

Senior Member
Hi all. Was just wondering what you do when your SD cards are full and have been uploaded to your pc etc. Do you reformat and use again or do you replace and keep as an extra form of backup?

My file workflow;

1. Upload to my PC via Lightroom / external hard drive
2. Backup to Backblaze (online/cloud backup)
3. format card in camera to clear images
4. Backup external hard drive #1 to external hard drive #2 that goes into the safe
 

Welshy74

Senior Member
Thanks for all your replies. Looks like reformarting is the majority choice. I currently back up to a 1TB WD My passport ultra. If I used a second one would it automatically save to it?
 
My file workflow;

1. Upload to my PC via Lightroom / external hard drive
2. Backs up automatically to Carbonite (online/cloud backup)
3. format card in camera only after reviewing the shots in Lightroom



 

Welshy74

Senior Member
Thinking of getting a WD My Book 4TB as my main back up and use my passport ultra as the spare backup. Question is would the software get confused if using 2 devices. As would be looking at just to plug an play device
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
Thinking of getting a WD My Book 4TB as my main back up and use my passport ultra as the spare backup. Question is would the software get confused if using 2 devices. As would be looking at just to plug an play device

If you named the drives the same, it probably would not get confused as long as you had the same copies on both drives. At least, my Mac sees different drives with the same name as the same.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

carguy

Senior Member
Thinking of getting a WD My Book 4TB as my main back up and use my passport ultra as the spare backup. Question is would the software get confused if using 2 devices. As would be looking at just to plug an play device

Yes, naming the drives as Charlie posted would help.

I only use one external drive while using Lightroom with my flow.
I backup to the second drive through my OS file manager so there is no confusion.
 
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