Formatting my SSD

[Jrimmer]

I recently purchased an Alienware 15 laptop which came with a M2 Lite-on 256 GB SSD and a standard platter 7200 RPM 1TB hard drive. The reason for this post is I want to format my SSD which contains the operating system and I was wondering how to safely do this? When I use the term "safely" I mean to say how to format the SSD without affecting  performance/reliability.

 

I called Alienware support and they told me I could simply use Windows 10 format tools to format the SSD. My desktop has a Samsung 840 PRO and whenever I have formatted this drive I would use "Secure Erase" so I guess I kind of assumed I would have to use some utility for the Lite-on SSD drive as well.

 

Can you on the forums provide clarification on how to appropriately format a SSD?

 

Is formatting an SSD the same across all SSD's?

 

Apart from interface how does a M2 SSD compare to an SSD that connects via SATA?

 

Thanks for the help!

 

 

[Fulgrim]

If anything, Secure Erase would wear out your SSD...

 

Just use the standard Windows format tool built into the OS instillation.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there Jrimmer,

 

Erasing the M.2 SSD would remove the OS from your computer and it won't be able to boot. You have a couple of options in front of you: 

- If you plan on installing a new OS on that drive, I would recommend backing up everything from your SSD onto the HDD and then simply use the OS installer to format the whole SSD during the process of installing the new OS. You should be able to repartition and format the whole SSD as well as only partitions from it. 

- You can take the SSD to an already working computer and plug it in externally or internally and use Disk Management to delete all partitions and reformat the drive the way you like it. 

 

M.2 is the form factor of the SSD and it can use SATA as well as PCI slots. It really depends on the SSD. Regular M.2 SSDs use the same SATA controller and work pretty much the same way as normal 2.5" SSDs.

 

Captain_WD.