dstppy said:
My experience has been that formatting helps with write speed . . . but that's anecdotal, not scientific.
Indeed. Looking around far and wide I ran across
this:
[quote author=johnboatcat]When I formatted the 16 G original Class 2 with all three programs (Windows, SD Format and WinMo), H2testw v1.4 came up with the same basic read and write speeds for all three at 512/64. The only difference that I see is the WinMo
only makes one copy of the FAT and the others make two. Single FAT is supposed to be faster in the real world according to the tech literature because it only has to write the FAT once. This fact only really shows up when the disk becomes fragmented according to the Xperts.[/quote]
and
[quote author=johnboatcat]What we learned: (By this very limited test.)
1. Card Class on the label does not have much to do with true read/write speeds. So you can't buy a card by it's cover and expect price/performance.
2. Card size and Class have little, if any, effect on Quadrant scores.
3. The format program and parameters you use, at least by these results alone, are not going to make a great deal of difference. Some programs/parameters might have a slight advantage. Fragmentation and usage may make some format/parameter methods behave differently in the long run. This was not tested here.
Conclusion: So go, my children and format your cards haphazardly. It probably is not going to make a lot of difference.[/quote]
I don't know if Canon devices format differently than Windows - this business about a single copy of the FAT vs. two is somewhat interesting though, but really only in an academic sense. At the end of the day I am still either putting the SD card in a computer slot or connecting the camera with a USB cable back to Windows, so transfer gains ought to be minimal. Haven't noticed lower-than-spec continuous shooting speeds which is where the speed really counts (for some users, not others).