How can drive formatting improve performance

Computers running the Windows operating system typically handle all the main file system formats currently in use, but you may need to format an external hard drive before it will work with your computer.

Formatting also offers other benefits, including the ability to delete all the files stored on the drive and erase personal data instantly. External hard drives that you can connect to your computer when you want to store large files often need formatting before you can use them. Formatting configures the hard drive so that your computer's operating system can read and write data to the disk.

Some high-capacity external hard drives come already formatted, while others prompt you to format them when you first connect the device to the computer with a USB cable. You may also need to reformat your computer's internal hard drive if you want to troubleshoot system problems by reinstalling the Windows operating system. If you're wondering how to speed up a hard disk even further, check out Razer Cortex. The tool is specifically designed for PC gamers who want to squeeze every drop of juice out of their systems.

It can help you achieve higher frames per second and reduce game loading times. They combine to give an HDD boost to all users. The system part of the tool will clean junk files, your browser history, and your system cache.

The gaming part will defragment game files as long as they on an HDD rather than an SSD , optimize your system's configuration for gaming, and disable background processes that can impact a game's performance. Download : Razer Cortex Free. The last native Windows utility that can improve the speed and efficiency of a hard disk is Disk Management. You can use it to repartition your drives. Using a greater number of partitions is one of the most often overlooked ways to speed up a hard drive.

Broadly speaking, the more partitions you use, the more organized your data is. As a result, an HDD's head does not need to move as far to access the data, and thus, read times are reduced. The final tool that can give your hard disk a health increase is Ashampoo WinOptimizer. The tool brands itself as a "Swiss army for your PC. In terms of improving hard drive health, it can schedule maintenance and optimization tasks, scan for junk files, fix broken registry entries, and clean your browser cookies.

The tool offers both a one-click fix and user-controlled corrections. Separately, you can add additional modules to the app. There are 38 to choose from, covering tasks such as service management, start-up tuning, process management, privacy tuning, and much more. Download : Ashampoo WinOptimizer Free. Specific steps to each method are shown as follows. Formatting a hard drive is rather convenient in MiniTool Partition Wizard.

It is a professional partition manager with some powerful features such as: Data Backup , Disk Benchmark, Partition Recovery, etc. After choosing the target hard drive to format, click the Format Partition feature from the action panel. Step 2: After setting the partition label, file system for the partition, click the OK button to continue the process.

You are able to format a hard drive on Windows through Disk Management. Next, I will show you the detailed steps to format a hard drive. Step 1: Press Windows and R key at the same time to open the Run window.

Type diskmgmt. Just as the picture shows. Single click the drive and then select Initialize Disk. After that, click the OK button to go on.

Select the Format feature after right clicking the target partition. Step 4: Set the volume label, file system and alloction unit size for the partition. Otherwise, it will carry out the operation according to the default settings.

Then, click OK. Step 5: Click OK in the pop-up window to finish the formatting operation. DiskPart allows you to format a hard drive, too. Step 1: Press Windows plus R key simultaneously to get the Run window.

Type diskpart in the windows and then click OK. Step 2: Type a series of commands on the DiskPart page. Press the Enter key after typing each command. The following are commands:. With methods given in the post, I succeeded in formatting my hard drive.

Click to tweet. After reading the post, you must have a deep understanding of disk formatting and why do you need to format your drive. You may know the answers now. Methods to format a hard drive are also provided for you. If you encounter any problem or have any question and suggestion to the formatting a hard drive issue, please send an email to [email protected] or leave a comment below.

Download Partition Wizard. Summary : What does formatting a hard drive do? Tip: Making a backup is a wise choice before formatting your hard drive in case important data get lost.