Last updated on June 18, 2020
- External Ssd 1tb
- Best Strategy For Formatting External Ssd For Os X Mac
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These formatting tools work for all brands and types of usb flash, hard drive, sd memory card. You may use them to force format on your usb/disk/sd for free. The best free formatter we tested for usb flash, disk drive, memory card.
Dec 03, 2019 READ NEXT: Best external hard disks. The best SSDs you can buy 1. Adata XPG SX8200 Pro: Best all-round SSD. Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive (SSD.
- Aug 10, 2018 Disk formatting is the process of prepping a storage device - like a hard drive, SSD, thumb drive (USB flash drive), etc - to store information, which will erase the existing data forever!
- Jun 10, 2020 If you just buy a new SSD or you want to install a new operating system on SSD, formatting an SSD drive is very necessary. Here are some occasions that you need to format SSD. The SSD drive is unformatted. New SSD comes unformatted. Some users are confused about that if new SSD needs to be formatted by themselves.
Format usb flash or memory card on MAC? Be free to visit: Top 3 free formatters for MAC; Flash drive corrupted? Try these usb repair utilities: 8 usb repair tools for Windows
Table of contents
- A). HP USB Format Tool Download - needs admin privilege
- B). IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free - can also repair bad blocks for disk/usb before formatting
Hard Disk Formatting Software to Format Hard Disk?
'Windows was not able to complete the format when I received drive not formatted error message and performed a formatting there. Really want to format hard disk smoothly and also restore its common use. Thanks!'
'I am searching for best free drive formatting software to wipe everything stored inside before selling this drive online. Do you have any suggestion? Hope the suggested formatting software would help delete data permanently and any erased file will never be restored again. Thanks'
Hello, friends, you are also looking for the related hard drive reformatting utility to fix hard drive problems or remove hard drive viruses, bad sectors and sensitive data, etc? OK! No worry! Here are several tested best hard drive formatting programs for you.
Note: Before any formatting, we would recommend you backup data from your media. If the device is no longer accessible, you may try this tool: how to recover data from not formatted drive/card
Free Disk Drive/Memory Card Data Recovery Tool (386)
Free Download Tool to Recover Data from Damaged Media, inaccessible drive, not formatted disk/usb/memory card.
Tested 5 Best Free Hard Drive/USB/SD Formatting Tool
External Ssd 1tb
Here are several common and useful free hard disk formatting utilities for you:
1). HP USB Disk Storage Format tool
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool is really a free disk formatting tool which allows people to easily and quickly format a USB flash drive to FAT32, exFAT or NTFS file system. And it can work flawlessly even when Windows was unable to complete the format when your usb pen drive turned raw format.
MUST READ: * It needs you to run it under 'Administator'
With this software, if necessary, you can also make a bootable USB drive by choosing its 'Create a DOS startup disk' option.
Pros:
*It is completely free and easy to grasp and use.
*It works well in formatting USB drive into FAT32, FAT or NTFS.
*It is portable and could be installed on a flash drive to be used on different PCs.
*It allows people to 'Create a DOS startup disk' to help boot up a computer from USB flash drive.
*It supports common Windows operating systems.
*It works well in formatting USB drive into FAT32, FAT or NTFS.
*It is portable and could be installed on a flash drive to be used on different PCs.
*It allows people to 'Create a DOS startup disk' to help boot up a computer from USB flash drive.
*It supports common Windows operating systems.
Cons:
* It works well on USB flash drive and does not recognize internal hard drives and partitions.
* It needs you to run it under 'Administator'
* It needs you to run it under 'Administator'
Also read: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool Review and Error Fixing
2). IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free
As a disk formatting tool, Partition Resizer Free Edition also allows people to format the selected hard drive or partition into FAT32/ntfs for free. As a partition managing program, this software also help format, create, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage partitions effectively for you.
Free USB/Disk Formatter (1386)
Download IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free Edition to format disk/usb/memory card totally free of charge.
Format, repair bad blocks totally free of charge.
Must have: it has 'Check Partition' function to check and repair possible errors for your digital devices.
Pros:
*The home edition is free and easy.
*It helps format hard drive or partition into FAT32 as you wish.
*It also help format, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage computer internal hard drive partitions well.
*A tutorial video will also be automatically popped out and lead you to this software step by step.
*It supports the latest Windows 10/8/7 Vista and XP.
*It helps format hard drive or partition into FAT32 as you wish.
*It also help format, wipe, delete, resize, hide and manage computer internal hard drive partitions well.
*A tutorial video will also be automatically popped out and lead you to this software step by step.
*It supports the latest Windows 10/8/7 Vista and XP.
Cons:
*This home edition is free for personal use.
Remove Sensitive Data on Hard Disk/USB Flash by freeware Partition Resizer Free
Some users want to download disk formatting programs with the purpose of removing personal information on their storage media that they do not want to share any byte of the confidential data with another one.
In case of removing sensitive data with the usb format tools, we would recommend this freeware - Partition Resizer Free to you since it is built with a function - 'Wipe Partition' that could wipe the whole disk or usb by writing 0 or 1 into the disk, which makes the old data to be completely overwritten and can not be restored by any data recovery programs.
Step 1: Download and install Partition Resizer Free and get the usb/card to your PC if you want to remove an external device.
Step 2: Launch Partition Resizer Free and then right click the media you want to remove its privacy.
Step 3: Choose a wiping method. Time consumption depends on how much data on your media. Usually 120GB data would take about 10 minutes.
3). HDD Low Level Format Tool
HDD Low Level Format Tool is also another completely free disk formatting utility and allows people to easily format internal and external hard disk. With a Low-level format function, it often helps users format a hard drive completely and leave no original drive data there as well as removing some basic hard drive problems.
Pros:
*It is free and user-friendly.
*It support not only external hard drives, and also reads internal hard drives.
*It also offers a low-level format option to help users completely format hard drive and also ease everything inside drive.
*It also supports external memory cards, like SD, MMC, memory stick, CF card and more.
*It support not only external hard drives, and also reads internal hard drives.
*It also offers a low-level format option to help users completely format hard drive and also ease everything inside drive.
*It also supports external memory cards, like SD, MMC, memory stick, CF card and more.
Cons:
*Pay $3.30 to upgrade this free tool to get faster speed and free lifetime updates.
*It recognizes the internal hard drive as one, not separated partitions.
*The speed of this free version is capped at 180GB per hour which is 50MB/s.
*It recognizes the internal hard drive as one, not separated partitions.
*The speed of this free version is capped at 180GB per hour which is 50MB/s.
4). USB Disk Storage Format Tool
As the second disk formatting tool tested and listed here, USB disk storage format tool is also 100% freeware and allows people to completely format any USB flash drive or memory card with FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system formats.
Pros:
*It is free, fast and safe to format a flash drive or memory card.
*It supports all USB flash drives and memory card, like pen drive, thumb drive, CF, SD, Micro SD, TF, SDXC, SDHC memory card and more storage devices with different bands.
*It supports USB drive and memory card with FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types.
*It helps formatting storage device and also removes all stored videos, music and files completely.
*It supports all USB flash drives and memory card, like pen drive, thumb drive, CF, SD, Micro SD, TF, SDXC, SDHC memory card and more storage devices with different bands.
*It supports USB drive and memory card with FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types.
*It helps formatting storage device and also removes all stored videos, music and files completely.
Cons:
*It also does not read any internal hard disk and partition.
*Upgrade software to pro version to get more features, like creating bootable USB disk, formatting USB disk not recognized by Windows, doing a low-level format or adjusting cluster size for USB disk for faster speed, etc.
*It supports FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types only.
*Upgrade software to pro version to get more features, like creating bootable USB disk, formatting USB disk not recognized by Windows, doing a low-level format or adjusting cluster size for USB disk for faster speed, etc.
*It supports FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file system types only.
5). Tokiwa FAT32 Formatter
Tokiwa FAT32 Formatter is also a free disk formatting program which also helps everyone format hard disk and partition into FAT32 for free. With an easy-to-use interface, this software is also able to help delete or initialize a drive or partition smoothly.
Pro:
*It is free and easy to grasp.
*It allows users to delete or initialize hard drive partitions with simple clicks.
*It also reads all computer internal hard drives as separated partitions.
*It also allows user to format drive or partition into FAT32
*It allows users to delete or initialize hard drive partitions with simple clicks.
*It also reads all computer internal hard drives as separated partitions.
*It also allows user to format drive or partition into FAT32
Cons:
*It is able to format only unallocated space into FAT32 file system type.
*It only allows people to format hard drive or partition into FAT32.
*It supports Windows XP/Vista /2000 /7 only.
*It only allows people to format hard drive or partition into FAT32.
*It supports Windows XP/Vista /2000 /7 only.
Free usb/disk formatting without software
Here are also some free methods that are available for you to operate hard drive formatting or usb format without any software under Windows.
Method 1: format by right click the disk drive, pen drive or sd card
Method 2: format under PC Disk Management
Method 3: format with cmd, it works when Windows was unable to complete the format
Step 1: open cmd by typing 'cmd' or 'diskpart' in 'Search Programs and Files' under Windows start
Step 2: type the letters inside of the quote 'format F: /fs:fat32' and enter. F must be replaced by the drive you want to format.
If you want to know more solution about why and what to do when Windows was unable to complete the format, you may read this article: Windows failed to format
Or you may see the following video to get a quick fix when it is unable to format your drive/card.
Note: when your flash drive or hard disk is damaged, be free to try these 8 free usb drive repair software for free repairing.
Conclusion:
No matter why you have to format a hard drive or memory card, there are always five common ways for you to choose, like formatting it in My Computer, performing a formatting process in Disk Management, formatting a hard drive with common line, doing a formatting process with drive partition managing software or disk formatting software. And No matter which way you choose at last, hope you can extract and save important data backups well in advance to avoid any unexpected data loss troubles.
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Summary :
SSD is gaining popularity nowadays since it offers more outstanding performance than HDD and its price keeps falling. However, to get the best performance of SSD, there are some tips and tricks. This post shows how to optimize SSD Windows 10 and introduce some SSD optimization tools.
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Why Solid State Drive Is Popular
A solid state drive (SSD) is a data storage device which uses integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data persistently.
Unlike mechanical hard drives (HDD) which require track seeking time and latency time to read data, SSD is capable of retrieving and reading data directly from any location of the flash memory. In other words, there is almost no random access time to read data on SSD (it is typically under 0.1ms), which saves a lot of time. Therefore, SSD is preferred by lots of computer users who are seeking for speed.
However, SSD performance is easy to be affected by various kinds of factors, so users had better take some basic operations in case of performance loss.
In this post we are going to show users some tips on getting the most out of SSD as well as methods for SSD optimization in Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, and Windows 7. At the same time, an SSD optimization tool will be introduced.
To Get Best Performance from SSD - Use It as System Disk
We had better use SSD as the boot or system disk (the disk installing Windows OS), because SSD will tweak your Windows 10 as well as any other version of Windows OS via reducing computer's boot time, increasing system running speed, and boosting data stabilization.
In addition, we highly suggest installing Windows 7 or more recent Windows operating systems on SSD, because these systems have a lot of features which are useful to optimize SSD performance, including the TRIM command, auto partition alignment, the feature of disabling defragmentation/Superfetch/Prefectch, and so on.
Of course, you can also install programs like games, PhotoShop, and other apps requiring speed on SSD, which will also bring you wonderful experience.
Tip: If your computer (especially laptop) is configured with SSD only (no HDD), all files, including Windows and user data, have to be saved to SSD. In this case, create 2 partitions at least. One for Windows and apps, and the other for data.
Quickly Migrate OS to SSD
Migrate OS to SSD/HD Wizard feature of MiniTool Partition Wizard can be used to transfer your Windows from HDD to SSD. Its Free Edition can’t support OS migration from MBR to GPT, but the Professional and more advanced editions support it. Just get MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro from the following button.
Step 1. Choose Migrate OS to SSD/HD.
- Run MiniTool Partition Wizard to get the main interface.
- Click Migrate OS to SSD/HD Wizard.
Step 2. Choose a way to migrate OS.
- only to migrtae the OS.
- migrate all partitions on the system disk.
Step 3. Choose a destination disk to hold the system.
Now you need to choose a disk as the destination to hold all content from the source disk. Note that all content on the destination disk (must be basic disk) will be erased, a data transafer should be necessary if there are key files saved on the drive.
Step 4. Choose the copy options.
- If you want the whold destination disk to be occupied, choose the 1st one.
- To keep the original partition size, choose the 2nd one.
- The 3rdoption is better to keep checked so as to enhace the performace of the SSD.
- And the 4st option helps migrate OS from MBR disk to GPT disk, which is a paid function.
Step 5. Read the information which focus on how to boot from the destination disk.
Step 6. Click Apply to execute the operation.
5 Methods to Optimize SSD Windows 10/8/8.1/7
Here, we provide users with 5 ways to optimize SSD performance. Now, let's explain them one by one.
Method 1: Align Partitions with SSD Optimization Tool
4K alignment is a quite important issue for SSD since it largely affects SSD performance.
As we know, 512-byte sector is the most widely used standard for hard disk. However, with the increase of hard disk capacity, employing 512-byte sector is no longer as reasonable as before. Therefore, many manufacturers have set their hard disk to 4096-byte (4k) sector.
But considering compatibility with operating system, manufacturers emulate a 4k physical sector to 8 512-byte sectors to read/write data, which is the so called 512e. Due to this change, the physical 4K sector may be misaligned with the 4K cluster ( the default cluster size for NTFS):
Tip:Cluster is the smallest unit to save and read data on hard disk, which is set by system rather than hard disk manufacturers.
As a result, reading data in 1 cluster will read 2 physical 4K sectors so that data read and write speed will be reduced. Therefore, if we want to get best performance from SSD, it is very necessary to make them aligned, and to align partition can help us achieve this goal.
In Windows 7 and more recent OS, all newly created partitions will be aligned automatically. However, if you migrated Windows from HDD or SSD to SSD or once changed partition size and location on SSD, your partitions might be misaligned. Well, how can we know whether our partitions are aligned or not?
How to Quickly Check and Align Misaligned Partitions in Windows 10/8.1/8/7
As a professional SSD optimization tool, MiniTool Partition Wizard can also be used to align partition. Before you do, please download its Free Edition and install it on your computer.
Launch the program to get its main interface. Here, as long as we select a partition and choose 'Align Partition' feature from the left side, MiniTool Partition Wizard will tell you whether this partition is aligned. If it is already aligned, you’ll receive the following message:
However, if it is misaligned, there will be a pending operation shown in the action panel and you need to click Apply to perform SSD partition alignment.
Instead of aligning one partition, you can select the whole disk and choose 'Align All Partitions' if there is more than one partition on your SSD, which could detect and align all misaligned partitions on the SSD.
Method 2: Leave Enough Free Space on Drive C
If C drive of SSD is running in low disk space, Windows will run slow, and data read/write speed might be influenced, too. Therefore, we’d better let C drive have 10% of free space at least.
If your C drive is running out of space or in little free space, now use the free SSD optimization tool MiniTool Partition Wizard and use its “Extend Partition” feature to enlarge it to get best performance from SSD.
for detailed information, read 3 Ways to Help You Get out of Low Disk Space Warning in Windows 7/8.1/10
Method 3: Enable AHCI Mode
1.Why Do We Need to Enable AHCI Mode for SSD
AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) is a technical standard defined by Intel that specifies the operation of Serial ATA (SATA) host bus adapters in a non-implementation-specific manner. Well then, why do we need to enable AHCI mode for using SSD to optimize SSD Windows 10/8/7? Here we mainly introduce 2 reasons:
NCQ will be supported after we enable AHCI, which contributes a lot to SSD performance optimization. NCQ (short for Native Command Queuing) is an extension of the SATA protocol that allows hard disk drives to internally optimize the order in which received read and write commands are executed. With this feature, the amount of unnecessary drive head movement can be reduced, thus increasing performance largely for workloads.
Nevertheless, since SSD does not have head and head arm, many users think it useless to enable NCQ. Actually, though solid state drive does not have those mechanical parts, it has multiple channels. After NCQ is enabled, SSD host controller will analyze data request and NAND data distribution to make full use of the bandwidth of host controller channel so as to enhance performance.
AHCI enjoys faster data transfer rate than IDE (also called ATA). Due to technology limitation, data transfer rate of IDE is slower than that of IDE most of the time. For example, theoretically the maximum transfer rate of IDE133 is 133MB while AHCI enjoys 300MB/s speed.
Tip: There are many other factors affecting data transfer rate, including computer configuration, technology level of your SSD manufacturer, particular type of use of the drive, and so on. In addition, different benchmarks always give us different results. Therefore, the real transfer rate of AHCI on your computer might be slower than 300MB/s.
Therefore, it is very necessary to make AHCI enabled when you are going to use or have used SSD in Windows 10 or other Windows OS. Next, we will introduce detailed steps to turn this feature on.
2. How to Enable AHCI
Before enabling this feature, we should confirm AHCI driver has been installed. Fortunately, there is built-in AHCI driver in recent Windows operating systems like Windows 10 and Windows 8, so users just need to enable AHCI in BIOS. However, if you are running older Windows, you may need to download one manually at first, and then enable it in BIOS.
- Please press a specified key to go to BIOS when computer is booting. Different computers and motherboards require pressing different keys to enter BIOS, so users had better find the exact key via searching the internet or consulting computer manufacturers.
- Then, find the SATA Configuration or Type or Mode.
- Next, enable AHCI and finally press on F10 to save changes and exit from BIOS.
Now, the AHCI mode has been enabled. However, many users may get a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) after changing the disk mode to AHCI. What's the reason and how to solve this problem?
3. How to Fix Windows Blue Screen after Enabling AHCI
Some operating systems, especially Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8, do not configure themselves to load the AHCI driver upon boot (though they have) if the SATA-drive controller was not in AHCI mode at the time of installation. Since AHCI driver is not loaded, Windows will crash. Therefore, users should change disk mode to AHCI before installing Windows.
But fortunately, even if Windows Blue Screen of Death has appeared, users still have a chance fix the error without reinstalling system. Detailed steps are as follows:
Step 1: change AHCI back to the original mode (like IDE) in BIOS so as to make Windows bootable.
Step 2: start regedit.exe after Windows starts successfully. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Tip: Since operating Registry is a dangerous operation, users can make a backup for it in advance (optional). Please see how to back up and restore the registry in Windows to get details.
Step 3: go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesmsahci (if you are running Windows 10, please change msahci to storachi) to get the following interface:
Step 4: double click 'Start' on the right pane, change the value data to 0, click 'OK', and finally quit from the program.
Step 5: reboot computer and enter BIOS. Then, change the mode from IDE to AHCI.
After these 5 steps, your Windows should be bootable.
Method 4: Enable TRIM
In the post how to erase private data permanently I have said deleting a file in FAT32 partition just operates root directory and FAT, and deleting a file in NTFS partition operates MFT (mater file table) only. That is to say the real data is still saved in the original place until it is overwritten by new data.
To make use of space occupied by deleted files, the SSD has to find the space in data area, note and modify the contents, and finally write new data to overwrite the original data. These will take much time.
However, if we enable TRIM, operating system will inform the SSD which blocks of data are no longer in use and then erase these blocks internally and immediately. As a result, writing to those blocks in the future will be just as fast as when the drive was new, which can optimize SSD performance largely.
Since Windows 7, the TRIM is enabled by default but might be disabled due to some reasons. Therefore, users still need to check whether the feature is enabled: run CMD as administrator and type fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify.
If you get the result DisableDeleteNotify = 0, TRIM has been turned on. However, if the number is 1, you need to enable it manually by typing the command: fsutil behavior query | set DisableDeleteNotify = 0.
Tip: If you are still using Windows XP or Vista where TRIM won't work, you may need to use third party SSD management software to force TRIM enabled.
Method 5: Turn off Page File or Transfer it to Another Drive
The pagefile.sys file is always located in the partition where Windows is installed, and it may take up several GB hard disk space. If your SSD is small like 120GB or less, we highly suggest turning this feature off or transferring page file to another drive for SSD optimization Windows 7/8/10, which is in long term good for SSD longevity.
Best Strategy For Formatting External Ssd For Os X Mac
How to Turn Page File off
Here we take Windows 7 for example.
Step 1: right click the 'Computer' icon on the desktop and choose 'Properties' from the popup menu.
Step 2: choose 'Advanced system settings' from the left pane.
Step 3: under 'Advanced' tab choose 'Settings' of Performance.
Step 4: choose 'Change…' of Virtual memory under 'Advanced' tab.
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Step 5: uncheck 'Automatically manage paging file size for all drives', select partition C, choose 'No paging file', and click 'OK' to turn off the page file feature.
Actually, we can also transfer page file to another disk in this interface if the RAM is not large enough to support smooth computer running, and detailed steps are as follows.
How to Transfer Page File to Another Disk
- After selecting 'No paging file' in the interface of Virtual Memory above, we can click 'OK' to turn this feature off, but alternatively we can also click 'Set' to move the page file to another drive.
- Then, select a partition on another hard disk to move the page file to (here we transfer page file to partition G) and choose either 'Custom size' or 'System managed size' to decide the size of page file. Then, click 'Set' to make the change.
However, this will require users to restart computer. Please do as told. Once the computer reboots successfully, we can see the page file will be transferred to the selected drive, and space on SSD is released.
Best Strategy For Formatting External Ssd For Os X 10
Bottom Line
Actually, there are many other ways to help you get best performance from SSD or do best SSD optimization in Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, and Windows 7, like use Hibernation instead of Sleep, disable indexing, enable write caching, and move temporary files, but here we just introduce the above 5 since they play much more important roles.
Now, take or some of these measures to optimize your SSD and system performance. If you have any suggestion on SSD optimization Windows 7/8/10, leave us comments below.