What is the point of formating a storage device?

If I was to get a 1GB micro SD card, should i format it to FAT 16 or FAT 32? What is the difference? Why do you need to even format disk drives? what does it do?

Answers:
Most memory cards come pre-formatted anymore. Fat 32 is the way to go, though. It actually stands for File Allocation Table. It's like the index of a book, it tells the computer, camera, or whatever how and where to place files and their information. It also includes the information such as name and size. Fat16 is for 16-bit systems, and Fat32 is for 32-bit systems which is what anything that's within the past 13 years can read. If you get the memory card for a specific device, you can use it to format the card, and it will chose the correct version.
Formatting erases all old data and prepares the drive for new data. Fat16 is not good.

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