Will formatting an external HDD go faster over eSata than USB?

[Kelemvor]

So I have one of these things that is USB2 and eSata:
https://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-Drives-Docking-Station-ST0014U/dp/B002MUYOLW

I know that for basic file transfers the eSata should be much faster but does it matter if I'm doing a Format of a drive (Windows 10)? I'm not using Quick Format since the drive might have problems and I want to see if a full format works but so far it's been going for at least 18 hours and the bar on the formatting box has barely moved.

I'm thinking of finding an eSata cable (I know I have one somewhere) and starting it over if that would make it go faster.

Thanks.

 

[Burpo]

You didn't say what size drive you're formatting, but if it's 2Tb or more, & using USB 2.0, it could/will take days to format. eSata won't be much of an improvement either.

 

[corkyg]

What is the drive capacity? The bigger the drive, the longer full format takes. I'm inclined to suspect something wrong with the HDD or its controller.

 

[Kelemvor]

It's a 500 gig drive. It may indeed have problems which is why I'm trying a full format. Just didn't know if format speed is affected by the connection type or not.

 

[ronbo613]

I use USB 2.0 and eSATA external hard drives and the eSATA is much faster than the USB. The drives are 2TB or larger. Wish the computer had more eSATA ports, it seems eSATA is not all that popular.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Well, basically, when you do a full format, you're writing to each sector.

USB2 limits you to ~50MB/sec (more like ~30 in real life though.) A 500GB HD can do between 30 and 200 MB/sec, depending on the specific drive model, speed, platter density, etc.

eSATA would be a bottleneck at ~250 or ~500, depending on SATA2 or SATA3.

So it's likely that USB2 would be a bottleneck, but it's also possible that the speedup wouldn't be all that great.

But 18 hours? That drive should have been done already. IMO it's more likely that the USB connection flaked and the format is stuck.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah. Just as a rough guesstimate, a 500GB HDD, doing a full format, over USB2.0, should take maybe 5 hours?

18 hours and barely completed; better look for the SNAFU.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yeah. Just as a rough guesstimate, a 500GB HDD, doing a full format, over USB2.0, should take maybe 5 hours?

18 hours and barely completed; better look for the SNAFU.

Well, unless he selected a multiple-pass ZAD. Should be about 5 hours per pass then.

 

[corkyg]

OK - I just unwrapped a brand new WD Blue 500GB HDD. Step 1 was to initialize it so it could be seen by the PC. Running, Win 7, I then gave it a full format directly connecting it to SATA I via a trayless mobile rack. It took exactly 1 hour and 18 minutes to do the full format.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'll take one for the team, here. I've got a Hitachi HGST Touro 500GB portable exernal USB3.0 HDD. I can plug it into my USB2.0 port, and see how long it takes to do a Full Format.

It's already empty, so I don't mind re-formatting it.

Edit: Interesting. I plugged it into the only USB2.0 port on my DeskMini mini-STX PC with G4600 CPU.

I ran a quick CDM on it, the Seq., it scored 43MB/sec, both Read and Write.

Which is really interesting to me, since like forever, I've never seen a USB2.0 HDD get higher than maybe 33-34MB/sec.

I wonder if this is using UASP over the USB2.0 port, because all of the USB ports on a Skylake system are controlled by the XHCI drivers, which in Win10 include UASP?

Edit: Indeed, CDI is reporting UASP interface.

Edit: Seems like it will take 3-3.5hrs over the USB2.0 port? Seems to be going at about 1% formatted, every two minutes. That's 200 minutes, or 3.33hrs.

Edit: Yeah, that's pretty accurate. Started at 8:41, got to 5% at 8:51. Not going to spend three hours waiting for it to finish, I'm cancelling and doing a Quick Format to get it back into shape.

 

[JeffMD]

why the need for a full format on a new hard drive? just used fast format and be done with it.

 

[corkyg]

OP stated his reason for full format and it is valid. Normally fast will do just fine, but if you want a new map of the entire drive, full does it.

 

[JeffMD]

just look at the drives smart data. Heck if a drive encountered bad sectors, it would have marked them bad and a full format would not reveal them.