How long does it take to format a 4TB drive for Mac?

hoodledoodles · October 12, 2018, 8:53am

I just bought the WD My Passport blue 4TB drive, but when I plugged it in, at first I got a message that this drive could not be formatted (I chose Mac O/S Journaled in Disk Utility).

I have now managed to get it to connect, and it appears to be reformatting now, but it’s incredibly slow/hanging.

Screen shot attached.

How long should it take for my Mac (O/S 10.13.6) to reformat it so I can start using it?

Thanks,

Heather

hoodledoodles · October 12, 2018, 9:05am

Just adding to this, it does appear to erasing now but it’s incredibly slow. I predict somewhere in the region of 6 to 8 hours to complete, does that sound about right?

It’s now 18:36, 9 hours later, and it looks like it’s about 75% erased. Will come back and update later…

Wow. Now 21.14 and about 80% done. Soooo slow… I don’t understand why it’s so slow. I’ve never had this before…

hoodledoodles · October 13, 2018, 10:36am

Ok - it finally finished erasing about midnight. I’m just in the process of copying files over to it so it does appear to have worked.
Worthwhile noting, it would be easy to think the drive wasn’t working properly; you have to be pretty patient! I’m hoping it’s worth the wait

jamisons · May 18, 2019, 4:12am

Same experience here. New My Passport Ultra for Mac 4TB. Paid extra for the Mac version to avoid wasting time formatting.

Macbook Pro 2018 OSX 10.13.6

Drive powered up, but did not appear in finder.
Disk Utility initially gave message that this drive could not be formatted.

I chose Erase and format as Exfat and chose highest security (3 passes). Thought it would be quick since the disk is blank already.

5.5 hours later it appears to be 10% done with pass 1.