Do I need to full format a new SMR external hard drive (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by Silversadness@alien.top to c/datahoarder@selfhosted.forum

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Hi guys, i have a few questions. So i just return my Seagate Backup Plus because there's a problem with it, and Seagate gave me a new external HDD, it's a 2TB Seagate One Touch, and from what i read it's an SMR type.

While researching what to do with a new hard drive on the subreddit, i came across suggestions to perform a full format so the bad sector is getting checked (in windows) then do a long SMART test.

From what i've gathered, a full format involves writing zeroes to the drive. now, my questions are:

For a new external hard drive with SMR type, is it recommended to perform a full format? Will it potentially make the drive slower because it fills the drive with zeroes?
Currently I've already completed a full format on the drive, and I've noticed that after one hour, the drive's light is still on, and the drive hasn't spin down. Normally, it would spin down within just a few minutes. Could this be a result of the full format process?

Thanks in advance!

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[-] HTWingNut@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

You don't need to full format a new hard drive. You can if you want to make sure there's no errors on the disk.

As far as SMR is concerned, connect it through USB supporting UASP, that's usually more a part of the USB chipset on the hard drive than anything else. Then you can TRIM the disk. Just be sure to let the disk idle for a bit after trimming it.

this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023

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