Question Can Win10 format two drives via USB at the same time?

[mikeford]

I just bought 5x refurb 6TB drives to feed my NAS habit, plugged in the first one via USB 3.0 adapter, ran crystalinfo and HDtune, then started a non quick format to fully test the drive. Slow, but its moving, using my second USB 3.0 adapter did the same for next drive, and format progress bar hasn't moved after 30 min plus. Can I format two at once, or does it only do one at a time and queue the next one?

 

[MalVeauX]

Hi,

Windows may not be able to do it unless you're doing it via shell commands (not sure), but I know Gparted can do this on all the drives simultaneously.

Then again, a non-quick format doesn't remove data, so you could be using something just to validate sector health on the drive instead of trying to format things.

Very best,

 

[razel]

...5x refurb 6TB drives...

and one of them is having trouble formatting. Cancel the format or just unplug. You mention CrystalInfo (which displays health) and HDTune but didn't state that you did a true SMART quick test where the drive tests itself. Do that on the drives and connect them natively (probably SATA). If they are healthy them go ahead and quick format. Yes, Windows can format more than one drive at a time. The hard part is if the program you're using to format allows more than one instance. As MalVeauX brought up, you definitely can via multiple command prompts and looks like you still can do the basic format [drive letter] /q once the partition is created.

 

[mikeford]

First drive just now completed its format, and is getting loaded with the content of one of my PC internal drives prior to swapping it.
Second drive progress bar still not showing anything, but the I can feel movement in the drive when I hold it, and the LED on the adapter is blinking away, so as likely as not its formatting as well.

First batch of refurb drives I ran all the diagnostics on the first 4TB drive, smart, short, long, whatever I ran it, then formatted and ran crystalinfo again to check for any changes. By the third drive I was a LOT lazier, and just ran the long format. I've gotten lazier since then.

Raid5 on the primary NAS, with a full albeit JBOD mirror on a second NAS. My most critical files will get a second full mirror on a third NAS that will be offline except during mirror, eventually the most most critical will be burned to M-disc.

 

[MalVeauX]

Just a thought, but if these discs end up being returned, consider just doing a standard mirror (1) instead of RAID5. You're doing, what, 24TB with one disc loss worth of fault tolerance due to parity if I recall out of the total 30TB? The rebuild is slow and those are already used drives and you're already having issues just formatting them. You can get fairly affordable high capacity drives now and then just run a mirror, no parity to fool with, rebuild is very fast and functional while rebuilding as it doesn't have to deal with parity and the fault tolerance is still good. I guess it depends just how inexpensive 5 of those refurbs are.

Very best,

 

[mikeford]

Don't get the wrong idea, I don't expect to have any issues with any of these drives. They are enterprise grade drives, HGST He6, rated at 2.5M hr mtbf, attrition measured in the field is about 0.35% failure per year, with a full surface test until I see some bad sectors no reason to swap one out.

I have 4 NAS units, two are 4 bay business class, and two are 2 bay consumer models. My first batch of refurbs were 6x 4TB, adding this new batch drives will shuffled around a bit. My PC will have its two 3TB drives replaced by one 4TB and one 6TB, Primary NAS gets 4x 6TB in a RAID5 for about 16TB available, mirror NAS gets 4x 4TB JBOD for about 14TB, the two 2 bay NAS units each get 2x 3TB, one maybe in RAID1 (mirror), other or both JBOD, to be mostly offline and powered off except for backups. Given some things will also be stored on my PC or other users PC, should be plenty robust.

No idea really what was going on with the second drive, but seems like a Win10 issue, not a drive issue. It was still doing something and had not completed format this morning, so I canceled the format, did a quick instead with no issues, and will test other ways.

 

[mikeford]

Funny two years later, looking for an answer to same question, can I format two drives at the same time, and best google hit I get is my own old thread.

Update to original post, went back to long format one drive at a time, internal or USB3 Rosewill adapter made no difference to the W10 non quick format, but the USB3 adapter failed a couple times when doing mixed activity during a format, W10 disabled the driver showing a "migration" error. WD Dashboard had lots of issues.

Batch of drives I was testing 2 years ago last two drives both had issues bad enough to return, Seller was POS, so I had to return all of them. One would not pass the extended smart test, the other iirc had failed He level. Worse when I found a new vendor, ended up with non He drives, so far working fine. Batch I just bought are He6 HGST, so far first two test fine.