Format Hard Drive takes too long

[Sipno]

Hi, I have a hard drive (an HGST 500gb with 7200RPM) connected with a SATA to USB cable.
After 2,5 hours of waiting to be formated (not the quick format), I cancelled the procedure.
Is it too long or is it my idea? Is there a faster way to format the drive instead of the typical windows way(right click on the drive in my computer-properties, format)?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Jasjar]

Choose quick format, format does not format the drive "better" it just takes a lot longer because it is looking for bad sectors. If you must use format you are going to have to wait. You should have waited for another half an hour, your drive would of formatted by then.

 

[gervino]

Sata to USB will slow down the process a bit, but normal formatting usually takes a few hours yes. So your time is normal. If you really want to fully format your disk (so it will write random numbers so your old data can't be recovered easily, and it will check for bad sectors) it will take a few hours.

If you just want an empty disk use 'quick format'.

 

[Sipno]

Sata to USB will slow down the process a bit, but normal formatting usually takes a few hours yes. So your time is normal. If you really want to fully format your disk (so it will write random numbers so your old data can't be recovered easily, and it will check for bad sectors) it will take a few hours.

If you just want an empty disk use 'quick format'.

Ok thanks, I am doing the format procedure again. It's been up to 3 hours and it's on 50 percent

 

[gervino]

Sata to USB will slow down the process a bit, but normal formatting usually takes a few hours yes. So your time is normal. If you really want to fully format your disk (so it will write random numbers so your old data can't be recovered easily, and it will check for bad sectors) it will take a few hours.

If you just want an empty disk use 'quick format'.

Ok thanks, I am doing the format procedure again. It's been up to 3 hours and it's on 50 percent

Yup, it's a long process haha. Goodluck!

 

[Faux_Grey]

Yeah.

Quick format = quick, 1-2 minutes maximum.

Non-quick = full write-erase operation, 2TB over USB 2.0 = 20-30 hours.