Formatting new external 2TB hard drive how long?

[GoofyGoofT]

So I am in the prosess of formatting my new external 2TB hard drive and I am using USB not eSATA. I am 5hr in.

How much longer do you think I have?
I am guessing it will take another 28hrs

 

[daw123]

It is probably best to ask this question in the Memory and Storage sub-forum:
http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=47

 

[eLiu]

So I am in the prosess of formatting my new external 2TB hard drive and I am using USB not eSATA. I am 5hr in.

How much longer do you think I have?
I am guessing it will take another 28hrs

If the drive is new, why not just rewrite the partition/file tables and go? There's no need to fill it with 0s...

 

[Matthiasa]

If the drive is new, why not just rewrite the partition/file tables and go? There's no need to fill it with 0s...

Just because it is new doesn't mean it doesn't come preloaded with "fun" stuff from the factory.

 

[mb]

5-10 seconds

No need to do a full format.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Why didn't you do a quick format?

 

[XZeroII]

just do a quick format. it will take a couple of seconds.

 

[Leros]

Just because it is new doesn't mean it doesn't come preloaded with "fun" stuff from the factory.

Doesn't matter what is on the hard drive. If its not in the file allocation table, the computer doesn't know how to access it.

 

[GoofyGoofT]

Why didn't you do a quick format?

I want to be sure there are no bad sectors. isn't that what a full format is for?

 

[GoofyGoofT]

It is probably best to ask this question in the Memory and Storage sub-forum:
http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=47

I am doing this for a fun question, I am going to post the length of time if it finishes before I have to go to work tomorrow.

 

[IronWing]

My 10meg drive took about twenty minutes so...

(20 minute/10meg) * 2,000,000 megs = 4,000,000 minutes = 7.605141075 years

Enough time to catch a shower while it's running.

 

[QueBert]

I want to be sure there are no bad sectors. isn't that what a full format is for?

Yes I always full format the first time, I can't tell you how long it'll take, but it won't be quick. Shit I've had so many HD's that were basically DOA in the past 6 years there's no way I'd ever trust my data to a full format. Even with a full format if I'm cloning another drive I keep that 2nd around for at least a week until I fully know the new one isn't going to poop on me. A quick format is just that, quick, if a person must to a quick format they should at least Spinrite or something equivalent. Which would offset the quick format

 

[Rifter]

I never quick format a new drive. A full format is always a good idea. I usually zero fill it 4 or 5 times in my server before putting it into service. I find that in my expericance a HDD will either take the abuse and run fine for a few years or crap out during the zero fills, in which case i can RMA it before i load it up with data.

 

[GoofyGoofT]

it took 28hr using USB 2.0

 

[C1]

Not sure if USB is even relevant. There's hardly any data transfer involved over the interface. The time consumption is doing the surface scan & analysis (ie, writing something to the platter & then determining if it can be satisfactorily read).

A new HDD should not need a full evaluation, but if you want to do it because there are doubts then:
- Do a quick format
- Start using the drive
- Run the detailed assessment in the off hours (eg, begin Saturday evening at say 9pm) & complete the maintenance run during the off hours when the system is normally not needed/used.

Or is all of that too logical?

 

[taltamir]

1. there have been (rare) cases of drives coming preloaded withs stuff... remember when the ipods were being shipped with a virus?
2. filling it with 0s will find defective sectors (which it shipped from the factory with, it happens) and mark them as such.
3. it helps to give it a good "burn in" to help cull out the weak... drives tend to break very early and very late.

Note that there is absolutely no ill effect to simply aborting the format and starting over.
Specifically, starting over using an eSATA port.

I second C1s advice... start with a format (quick or full... to taste). put a bunch of stuff on it, really fill it up... leave it running a few days (or at least 1 day), perhaps running a burn in program... then do a full format and put it to use (if it survived thus far)

Google confirmed what most customers were seeing... HDD have a 12-16% failure rate... most fail in the first 3 months, another good amount in the first year, and then a good amount in the 5+ years mark.

Oddly enough, for most of its life its drives with heavy OR low usage that are most likely to fail, drives with average usage are least likely... and temperature is irrelevant.

 

[Nothinman]

I always do 24-48hrs of stress testing drives with something like bonnie++ before actually using them. Brand new or not, I don't trust new drives.

 

[Emulex]

always full format a big drive - trust me. i'd say every time i did not full format - 80% of those drives had issues. i'd go further to full format and fill the drives a few times - gets most of the realloc's out of the way..

takes a good 8+ hours if usb 2.0

 

[Mark R]

Not sure if USB is even relevant. There's hardly any data transfer involved over the interface.

A full format involves the OS Reading all the data on the drive (to check for bad sectors). As a result, transfer rate is everything.

So 2,000,000 MB read at 23 MB/s over USB would take about 25 hours.

This would be faster over SATA, 6-8 hours or so, depending on speed of the drive.

As fast would be to run a SMART scan. The drive will then scan every sector using its internal processor. No data needs to be transferred. The drive will be fully usable during the scan. However, USB doesn't support SMART so this won't work.

Alternatively, you could do a quick format and run a surface scan with chkdsk at a more convenient time.

 

[Golgatha]

I want to be sure there are no bad sectors. isn't that what a full format is for?

Yes, I always do a full format on a new drive for this reason and also to stress it in case it's a bad egg mechanically speaking. 2TB took all of overnight to format for me. I'm guessing 10-12 hours.

Edit: This was over USB 3.0. Also, I typically fill up the drive a couple of times just to stress it heavily. It's a bit of extra work, but it's worth it.

 

[Emulex]

vibration also kills. putting a usb drive near a subwoofer or on a vibration prone surface is bad idea. had one on a table - dropped a 200lb weight on the floor - the vibration caused it to stall and fail. freeagent stylee.

i'm going to put gel beds under them soom

 

[taltamir]

vibration also kills. putting a usb drive near a subwoofer or on a vibration prone surface is bad idea. had one on a table - dropped a 200lb weight on the floor - the vibration caused it to stall and fail. freeagent stylee.

i'm going to put gel beds under them soom

I am pretty sure that google found both vibration and heat to be completely irrelevant to drive death. (both are proclaimed by experts to be the #1 killer)

 

[Emulex]

okay start pounding the desk where your external drive is sitting on while watching perfmon until the drive stops working (it doesn't take much to cause a head crash).

be ready to rma the unit you'll be surprised how fast you can kill a drive

 

[taltamir]

okay start pounding the desk where your external drive is sitting on while watching perfmon until the drive stops working (it doesn't take much to cause a head crash).

be ready to rma the unit you'll be surprised how fast you can kill a drive

that is shock, not vibrations.
Vibrations is what you get from having multiple drives in the same box, not to HITTING or SMASHING. (yea, a shock over a sufficient threshhold would break a drive... actually it would break anything)

 

[hennessy1]

My WD 2TB drive takes between 4-5hrs to do a full erase. This is with their dos based program. It is about the same time to do an extended media scan on the drive as well.