Why does Windows 7 takes FOREVER to format a usb stick?

Sharky Forums


Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Why does Windows 7 takes FOREVER to format a usb stick?

  1. #1
    Tiger Shark ant19's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    My house
    Posts
    956

    Why does Windows 7 takes FOREVER to format a usb stick?

    I have just upgraded my netbook from XP to Windows 7 and am transferring some files I backed up. It takes forever to format the usb stick, like 10 mins to do 1gb so I cancelled that and just did the "quick format" option. Is there any drawback to doing that instead? On XP it took about 30 seconds to format a 16gb usb stick (complete format not quick).

  2. #2
    Great White Shark
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    Alpharetta, Denial, Only certain songs.
    Posts
    9,925
    Short answer:
    Windows XP lied to you. Windows 7 does not.

    Long answer:
    Windows XP took shortcuts reporting time, and often attempted to background complete tasks to make them appear as if they had finished faster. Windows 7 does not do this. It actually reports accurate times to sit there and zero out the contents of flash drive.

    When formatting a flash stick, it will take a long time. You are talking about doing a read-modify-write operation on every flash cell in the stick. Quick formatting simply overwrites the File Allocation Table with a blank one, allowing the immediate overwrite of any data previously stored. It doesn't actually format the drive. Thus the reason it takes much less time. USB flash drives are extremely slow devices, especially after being well used.

    Crusader for the 64-bit Era.
    New Rule: 2GB per core, minimum.

    Intel i7-9700K | Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX | Samsung 970 Evo 2TB SSD
    64GB DDR4-2666 Samsung | EVGA RTX 2070 Black edition
    Fractal Arc Midi |Seasonic X650 PSU | Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 Ultra | Windows 10 Pro x64

  3. #3
    nuclear launch detected kpxgq's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    texas
    Posts
    16,612
    theres really no drawback to doing a quick reformat unless you have some critical/private data on there... with normal use, the old data will eventually get over-written
    bitfenix prodigy, i5 4670k, asrock z87e-itx, zotac gtx 970, crucial m500 msata, seasonic x650, dell st2220t

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •