Hi all
Is it necessary to quick format my 500GB passport essential before using it?because i already backed-up my files in it and didnt do the quick format, because i dont know if it is necessary to quick format it, is it OK?
You don’t have to quick format it since it already comes formatted from the factory. However, you may prefer to do a regular “non-quick” format in order to thoroughly test out a drive before committing any data to it! It is time consuming but important to weed out drives that are prone to failure. Some drives seem to work fine when used for brief periods (ie. doing a quick format and then copying just a few megabytes once in a while) but may act up when saving huge chunks of data all in one go (ie. overheat, develop sector or partition errors while backing up 100 gigabytes of data).
Choosing the long format option over the quick format is a good first step to weeding out flaky drives.
I normally run a S.M.A.R.T. test when I first plug in the drive, before formatting it. I save or print the test results. Then I format the drive (the long way…) and run a S.M.A.R.T. test again, noting any differences in the results that may indicate problems. I also look at the windows events log (assuming you use MS Windows as an operating system) to see if any disk or disk controller errors popped up. Then I run a sector-by-sector check disk to further stress the drive and ensure the format still shows as good. I also look at the S.M.A.R.T. numbers once more for the drive, ensuring there aren’t any drastic differences and file the results so that I can see just how much the drive characteristics change over time and decide when I should “retire” the drive to less important duties.
