Format drives simultaneously or one at a time?

[Carson Dyle]

I just received four new hard drives to be placed in my home file server running Windoows Server 2008 R2. Is it faster to format them simultaneously, or should they be done one at a time? They're all connected to the same Supermicro PCI-X SATA II controller.

 

[VirtualLarry]

At the same time would be fastest.

 

[BFG10K]

Also unless you're not doing a quick-format, the time to format one drive should be trivial anyway.

 

[fleshconsumed]

I wouldn't do a quick format on a new drive though. If you do not do quick format, windows should zero fill the hard drive, so theoretically it should help flush bad sectors if any.

 

[Carson Dyle]

So there's no bus contention during non-quick formatting of separate drives? That's what I was getting at.

 

[Ratman6161]

So there's no bus contention during non-quick formatting of separate drives? That's what I was getting at.

Nothing to worry about. You probably could have had it done already in the time it took to post here 🙂

 

[Carson Dyle]

I was impatient and ended up doing quick formats anyway. Since I'm immediately transferring (copying) files to completely fill these drives, that should be a pretty good test of their seaworthiness.