Brand New HDD: 11 Hours to Format!!??

[Doogals]

I purchased a brand new WD 1TB Blue HDD (WD10EZEX), installed it fresh out of the bag into a Mediasonic ProBox external enclosure (K32-SU3), initialized it in Windows 10 using MBR, partitioned it as a single volume, and began a full format (not quick format).

For some reason it took 11 hours to format the drive!!! But why?

Additional thoughts:

- The Mediasonic enclosure had an old Seagate 250GB drive installed in it before I installed the new WD drive, would this cause any issues and is there anything I should have done to the enclosure before removing the old drive and installing the new one?

- The purpose of this drive is a duplicate copy of my primary backup (which has the exact same HDD and enclosure) but after taking so long to format my confidence in this new drive is now zero.

- I had the enclosure plugged into front panel USB port of a rather old Dell workstation.

So now do I return and exchange the drive for a new one? Then purchase a brand new enclosure for it? Are my concerns about the reliability of this drive valid? 11 hours to format a brand new drive seems like a huge red flag to me?

Any thoughts or advice? Much appreciated thank you.

 

[USAFRet]

This is the 4 bay MediaSonic box?
http://www.mediasonic.ca/product.php?id=1357290977

I have that same one. Works flawlessly.
Switching drives in it is no problem.

Do you have it connected to a USB 3.0 or 2.0?

 

[das_stig]

Possible the drive has a problem, but you need to run the WD diagnostic tools to find out, 1TB still takes time for a full format, even over a USB3 connection and even longer on older USB2.

 

[alceryes]

Is there any reason why you are doing a full format instead of quick? Plug the drive directly into the MB, reformat it, and see how long it takes.
11 hours does seem a bit much for 1TB.

 

[USAFRet]

"- I had the enclosure plugged into front panel USB port of a rather old Dell workstation."

That might even be USB 1.1. Leading to a looooooong format time.

 

[Doogals]

Single drive enclosure, see link below. I am going to check the speed of the front USB ports on that workstation.

http://www.mediasonic.ca/product.php?id=1357293418

 

[Doogals]

Front panel USB ports are 2.0 as per Dell's spec sheet:

Dell Precision T7400 Workstation

"Eight USB 2.0: two on front panel, ve on back panel, one internal (UDOC) on motherboard."

 

[Doogals]

Two further questions:

1. Would it make sense to purchase a new external enclosure? Could the old one have been part of the problem?

2. Should I be doing a quick format or full format to a brand new drive?

 

[USAFRet]

Two further questions:

1. Would it make sense to purchase a new Mediasonic enclosure? Could it have been part of the problem?

2. Should I be doing a quick format or full format to a brand new drive?

1. Doubtful that was the issue

2. Quick format is just fine

 

[Doogals]

Update:

I exchanged the drive for a new one, installed it into the same enclosure, and formatted it using the USB 3.0 port on a newer computer.

It took exactly 2 hours to format (full format), and I have much more confidence in this drive now.

However this has still left me wondering what the issue was with the last drive, but I'm not sure there is any way to figure that out now?