Took 6 hours to format a 500GB external hard drive?

[luffy]

Hi, I just format a new 500GB external hard drive? It took 6 hours to complete. Is it normal?
Actually, it's not a external hard drive. It's a internal hard drive. I use BYTECC Aluminum SATA-USB HDD Enclosure to run it as external hard drive.

Western Digital RE2 WD5000YS 500GB

Aluminum 3.5" HDD Smart Drive Enclosure

[hellnoire]

Sounds like someone didn't run a quick format then.

If it's an empty hard drive, a quick format goes a lot faster, because a normal format makes sure it's all 0s when it comes to data. A quick format just skims it and if it sees anything that isn't a 0, it changes it to a 0. (Binary, 0 is off, 1 is one)

[kantagara]

I've got an external HDD and I need a long time to get some game get installed or copied to it. So I think that the external HDD's are slow and that's the reason why is formatting get that long

[Amature Programmer]

My cousins 1 terrabite External HD took 3 hours to format but thats still double the size of yours. My guess could be a slow computer?

[luffy]

Not sure if this is a slow computer?
AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core 5200 2.7GHz 4GB ram.
Yeah, it's just a 5200.

[Amature Programmer]

My other guess would be the program you used isn't a very good one.

[Raymond]

Slow computer shouldn't affect formatting speed.
Use the quick format next time. Takes only a few minutes.

[blackcobra]

May be a dying HDD..

[Raymond]

Guys it's normal to format a 500GB hard drive for many hours if not using Quick Format.

[jcgo16]

It depends on HDD speed, 7200RPM will be nice