How long does it take to format a 249 gb USB

[Hydraxx]

Hi, due to some problems with my usb drive I have started formatting it. But, it moved less than 1 percent in the last 30 min. Does anyone know how long this will take? Btw the quick format option is unchecked.

[blbalsdfkjivbvwerlo3244534]

Why not quick format?

[Guest]

It will take a while probably about 5 or 6 hours from my experience. Don't touch it while it is formatting and let it finish.

[dizmo]

When I quick format my 128GB drive it takes seconds.

[TheRandomness]

Yeah it'll take a few hours since you didn't quick format. Just leave it overnight.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Not checking quick formatting is the same thing as quick formatting with checking for bad sectors after the formatting is done. Unless you're really paranoid, if this is a fresh drive, there's no real reason to not do quick formatting.

[paddy-stone]

20 minutes ago, Hydraxx said:

Hi, due to some problems with my usb drive I have started formatting it. But, it moved less than 1 percent in the last 30 min. Does anyone know how long this will take? Btw the quick format option is unchecked.

At this point it would be way quicker to just cancel the format, and then do it again with quickformat checked.

[ARikozuM]

Should only take about two or three hours if you're using the "clean" or "clean all" command from diskpart. Quick format is quick since it just deletes the MFT and creates a new one, but a regular format (from My/This Computer) should only take a few minutes.

[mariushm]

If it's usb 2.0, the maximum write speed will be around 35 MB/s but most will average around 20 MB/s at best.

USB 3.0 sticks may go up to 40-50 MB/s, maybe a bit more.

 

So anyway, 249 GB = 249 x 1024 MB = 254,976 MB / 20 MB/s = 12,748.8 seconds  or 212.5 minutes 

 

Formatting implies filling a portion of the flash memory with some crap data (usually blanks, null characters or spaces or whatever you want to call them) and then reading back the data to make sure all the bytes are set to those values and old data was erased.

So it won't take only as much as it needs to write data to stick, you need to add to that the time it needs to read back the data (which is usually faster than writing)

 

Quick format just erases the portion of the stick that holds the "list of files and folders and metadata, the information for each file like size, date last modified, last accessed, who created file, if it's read only or not etc" and then each block of flash memory is overwritten as needed.  That's why it's much faster.

 

In general, you should not need to perform full format of drives that have memory chips (usb sticks, ssd drives etc)