How long does it take to full format a 256GB Kingston USB flash drive?

So far it's going to be almost 3 hours and the format bar is at half, is that normal? unchecked the "quick format" and changed it from FAT32 to NTFS.

@MK77P
Depending on your flash drive, it can take a long time to format.

At 256GB and around 40MB/s (on average) it should take around 106 minutes or 1 hour 46 minutes. It may be a little faster or slower depending on your PC and any applications you may have running in the background.

3 hours would be a bit on the slow side (average speed around 30MB/s), but I would not say that is abnormal.

If you're overwriting with 1's and 0's it could take a while. All 0's is a bit faster. (No pun intended.)

I think an estimated 6 hours to format that 256 drive (3 hours and it's at half) indicates that something is not working correctly. I'm going to assume you're doing this format in Windows Explorer, and I'm going to suggest that you terminate the format there and use MiniTool Partition Wizard (Free) or another disk specialist program to format it fully. My guess would be that it'll take not much more than an hour.

As a test, though, I just did a full format of a Kingston 32 GB USB drive, using File Explorer, and it took about 8 minutes. Multiply that by 8 (for a 256), and it should take 64 minutes or less to fully format a 256 in FE.

Try again, and good luck.

It also depends on the speed of the USB stick and the USB connector.


I'm testing right now. Yes, I'm using slow format.
Formatting a 256GB Corsair USB stick, in File Explorer.

My USB stick is 3.1 and the motherboard USB port I'm using is 3.2 Gen 2

Done in ten minutes.


Yes... it's a really fast stick...




My USB stick... Corsair GTX - 256GB


...and that 45% off is a bunch of hooey. I got the stick 3 years ago for $76.99

Yeah, something is definitely wrong if it's only a standard format but they turned "quick format" off so I'm not sure what's going on here. A military grade wipe? If it were me I'd be running my MiniTool Pro Ultimate on this, but that's just me.

That is normal for cheap USB flash drives. I would expect very approx around 4 hours for your drive, but could easily be 6 hours.

I have 2 Kingston 128 GB DT106 drives.
Slowest is 17.7 MB/s writing
1:51 hour, almost 2 hours to write.

The other is approx twice as fast.

I have a lot of 32 GB USB flash drives of different brands, cheapest variety, and they are very similar.

When I see such issues, haven't had many, I use Disk Management to delete any/all partitions then create a New Volume on it and format.

Usually USB Thumb drives come factory-formatted as FAT32, at least up to the 256GB HP I have and Windows has a limit of 32GB, anything larger I do in Linux with the GPARTED program installed which can do a number of other formats.

Windows can do larger than 32GB but the format would have to be either NTFS or exFAT. Mac OS X could read NTFS but needed additional app for writing, no issue using exFAT, don't know yet about the newer macOS.

Out of curiosity, may I ask why you elected to perform a full format rather than a quick format?

hsehestedt said:

Out of curiosity, may I ask why you elected to perform a full format rather than a quick format?

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I was wondering the same.

Presumably to securely wipe it? I've had a full format take about 6 hours before, on a 250gb hard drive in a computer. Whereas other methods of writing zeros were quicker.

Hazel123 said:

Presumably to securely wipe it? I've had a full format take about 6 hours before, on a 250gb hard drive in a computer. Whereas other methods of writing zeros were quicker.

Click to expand...

It is more to do with checking drive condition e.g. bad sectors than doing a secure wipe.

Ah ok

Hazel123 said:

Presumably to securely wipe it? I've had a full format take about 6 hours before, on a 250gb hard drive in a computer. Whereas other methods of writing zeros were quicker.

Click to expand...

I like using MiniTool Pro Ultimate for this but there other software apps that do equally as well.

I use a different to wiping USB Flash Drives simply because I have so many of them (100+).

When I start to use a UFD, I enable BitLocker on it. Then, if I ever want to wipe it's as simple as a quick format. Since all the data is already encrypted, it is effectively wiped. Makes my life much easier.

Why a USB flash drive of this size? So many dangers/pitfalls. Flash drives are notoriously unreliable no matter how brand reputable (Yeh, yeh, I know, some users have had theirs for years and years with no problems. But then there are the many who have lost so much data on such a large USB flash).

Physical size also makes them so easy to misplace

And then there's the transfer speed .... !!! which you're obviously experiencing an example of.

At that size, an SSD USB drive would be more preferable and efficient

idgat said:

At that size, an SSD USB drive would be more preferable and efficient

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Of course, you could also use a UFD that IS an SSD like the PNY 1TB PRO Elite V2 USB 3.2 Gen 2. PNY claims 500MB/s write and 600MB/s read, but many users (myself included) actually see even better performance than that. It is as small as a UFD, in fact smaller than many of them, but it is actually a real SSD with TRIM support and all.

As with ANY form of storage, having regular backups is a good idea.

I use mine as an "everything" disk. I can boot any one of many ISO images I have on it using software I created myself. For example, I can boot any Windows installation media, my Macrium Reflect recovery disk, recovery tools, etc. I also store my entire software library (BitLocker encrypted), my entire life's worth of personal photos and videos, and a whole lot more along with an unencrypted partition so that I can safely share the drive with other people.

hsehestedt said:

Of course, you could also use a UFD that IS an SSD like the PNY 1TB PRO Elite V2 USB 3.2 Gen 2. PNY claims 500MB/s write and 600MB/s read, but many users (myself included) actually see even better performance than that. It is as small as a UFD, in fact smaller than many of them, but it is actually a real SSD with TRIM support and all.

As with ANY form of storage, having regular backups is a good idea.

I use mine as an "everything" disk. I can boot any one of many ISO images I have on it using software I created myself. For example, I can boot any Windows installation media, my Macrium Reflect recovery disk, recovery tools, etc. I also store my entire software library (BitLocker encrypted), my entire life's worth of personal photos and videos, and a whole lot more along with an unencrypted partition so that I can safely share the drive with other people.

View attachment 85115

Click to expand...

I'd love to buy SSDs in a UFD form factor! I have in fact been looking for them ...

... but the device in the quote is described by its maker as a flash drive, I also could not find a TRIM feature on the product page.

Haydon said:

... but the device in the quote is described by its maker as a flash drive, I also could not find a TRIM feature on the product page.

Click to expand...

The screenshot below proves that it supports TRIM. Note that I have 4 partitions. The first partition is a small FAT32 partition which is why that partition does not support TRIM. Partitions 2 through 4 obviously support TRIM and partition 3 is also BitLocker encrypted.

I will admit that when I purchased it, I had no idea that it supported TRIM, I was simply looking for a very small (in size), but large capacity UFD that I could have with me at all times on a lanyard. Discovering that it also supported TRIM was merely a happy coincidence. Now that I have had it a little while and absolutely love it, I'm getting ready to order a second one.

@hsehestedt Let us know if your second PNY is the same as the first one > I like to have it too