How to Format Your SSD

Did you recently upgrade to a new SSD? Or are you looking to sell or repurpose an old laptop? Either way, you may want to learn how to format a solid-state drive. This article will guide you through the steps to format your SSD and help you understand why it’s important to do so.

When Should I Format My SSD?

• If you’ve recently purchased an SSD, you will probably need to format the drive so that it can be used with your operating system. When installing an operating system, there will be an option to select your new drive and format.
• If you plan on reusing an existing SSD, you should remember to format the drive before reinstalling the operating system. Note that clearing the drive partitions will erase the data, so be sure to back up your drive contents before proceeding.
• If you’re looking to sell or give away your SSD, you should consider securely erasing the drive using Kingston’s SSD Manager application, or 3rd party utilities that support secure erase or NVMe format. Note that this will permanently delete all data present on the drive.

Preparing Your SSD for Formatting

• First things first: back up your data! Whether on an external drive or in the cloud, make sure that any important data is backed up before you format the drive. Once the drive has been reformatted, it’s almost impossible to recover any data.
• Ensure TRIM is enabled on a supporting operating system to maintain SSD performance.
• To completely wipe the drive of all previous content, secure erase or NVMe format the device.

How to Format in Windows

In Windows, formatting is usually done from the Disk Management tool or File Explorer. You can get to both options by right-clicking the Windows Start button. Right-click the partition you want to format, and then select ‘Format’. Select your File System and Allocation Unit Size. Select ‘Quick Format’.  There are more details on our guide on how to format USB flash drives, which are essentially the same as SSDs when it comes to the formatting process.

How to Format on a Mac

The easiest way to format an SSD on a Mac is by using Disk Utility, which can be searched in Finder. Select your SSD from the list on the left and click ‘Erase’. Type in a ‘Name’ for the drive, then select a ‘Format’ (file system). Select ‘Erase’.  If you are formatting a disk for a Time Machine backup, you will need to pick MacOS Extended or APFS as the file system. There are more details on our guide on how to format USB flash drives, which are essentially the same as SSDs when it comes to the formatting process.  Learn more about disk formats for Time Machine.