Format: What the term means

What the term “format” means is not always clear. What you mean by it and what you should know about it is explained in this article.

Format: This is what the term

If you use different computer systems, you may need to format a file. You can format SD cards, SSDs or hard disks, among others. These are always storage media that you write files to and then read. They can also be overwritten again.

• Different computer systems sometimes use different file systems. For example, if you want to open a Mac file on a Windows computer, you have to convert the file, i.e. format it.

• Format a file and it will be written to a storage medium with an empty table of contents.

• Files can be formatted in a fast way or in a slow way. If formatting is done in a fast way, the table of contents is deleted. All files are present and can be restored.

• If formatting is done in the normal way, the individual areas of the file or a hard disk are checked and set to zero.

• For example, you can format an external hard disk in this way and then use it with another computer system.