3 Different Ways to Free Format SSD with No Harm to SSD - MiniTool Partition Wizard (2024)

SSD becomes more and more popular now. Given that fact, knowing how to format SSD or reformat SSD becomes very important now for many Windows users. This article will show you three different ways to format SSD Windows 10.

SSD, the abbreviation of solid-state drive, is a type of data storage device. Unlike traditional hard-disk drives (HDD), SSD uses semiconductor flash memory rather than rotating media. And there is no moving parts at all for an SSD. By using flash memory to store data, it provides better performance and reliability over an HDD.

If you want to learn more about the differences between SSD and HDD, this article could help you: SSD VS HDD: What’s Difference? Which One Should You Use in PC?

As the price of SSD decreases these years, SSD becomes more affordable to ordinary home users. Many users migrates OS to SSD to enjoy the fast running speed of SSD and better performance. In this case, to know how to format SSD is of great importance when you want to reuse SSD or clear data on SSD partition.

When Do You Need to Format SSD

If you just buy a new SSD or you want to install a new operating system on SSD, formatting an SSD drive is very necessary. Here are some occasions that you need to format SSD.

1. The SSD drive is unformatted.

New SSD comes unformatted. Some users are confused about that if new SSD needs to be formatted by themselves. Actually, when you get a new SSD, you need to format it in most cases.

That’s because that SSD drive can be used on a variety of platforms like Windows, Mac, Linux and so on. In this case, you need to format it to different file systems like NTFS, HFS+, Ext3, Ext4, etc. for use on your system so that it can be mounted as a usable storage volume on your system.

2. You want to install Windows OS on the SSD.

If you want to use SSD partition to install operating system, you need to format the partition to a clean state. If you use system migration to migrate OS, then the migration software will format the drive for you during the migration process.

3. You want to clear all the data on the SSD for reuse.

If the SSD does not contain any important files and you want to delete all the data on the disk, you will need to use a drive formatting utility to format the drive for reuse. Formatting the SSD can quickly clear all the data on the disk.

Formatting an SSD is very simple as long as you use a professional drive formatting tool. Next I will show you three different ways to free format SSD.

How to Format an SSD Windows 10 with Disk Management

You can use Windows built-in hard drive format tool Disk Management to format SSD Windows 10. Disk Management is a Microsoft Windows utility first introduced in Windows XP to replace the very old partition tool FDISK command.

Disk Management can perform some simple disk and partition operations like create partition, delete partition, format partition, change drive letter, extend or shrink partition. So you can use Disk Management to format SSD Windows 10, which is very simple and you don’t need to install any third-party software.

Disk Management is not the best utility to manage SSD partitions, but if you just want to format hard drive and that’s all, you may follow the steps to go ahead.

Step 1. Right-click the Windows Start menu and select Disk Management to get the main interface of Disk Management or run diskmgmt.msc to open Disk Management.

Step 2. Choose the partition on SSD you want to format. And then right-click it to select Format.

Step 3. You may also specify the volume label, file system and allocation unit size by yourself and then click OK.

Step 4. This note is to tell you that all the data on this volume will be erased. Make sure there is no needed files in this partition and click OK to continue.

Then the SSD partition will be formatted very quickly. All data on the drive will be cleared and they can be reused again.

Now you have learned how to format SSD Windows 10 with Disk management. You can use Disk Management to format SSD at ease, but just make sure that Quick Format is checked before formatting.

Next, I will show you a more convenient and powerful partition manager – the reputable MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is a marvelous disk partition manager. With this utility you can not only format SSD Windows 10 in just a few clicks, but also use this tool to manage SSD partitions with its features like create partition, delete partition, resize partition, extend partition, copy disk and so on.

If you want to perform advanced operations on your SSD, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition allows you to align SSD partition, convert MBR disk to GPT, migrate OS to HD/SSD, convert FAT to NTFS, measure SSD performance with its Disk Benchmark feature, wipe disk, analyze SSD drive usage .

Step 1. Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by clicking the following button. Install and launch it to get its main interface.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 2. Right-click the drive you want to format and select Format Partition from the left action panel.

Step 3. At this page, specify the partition label, file system as well as cluster size. You can format the drive’s file system to FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, Ext2, Ext3, satisfying all your needs (See: NTFS vs. FAT32 vs. exFAT – Differences and How to Format to). After resetting these parameters, you can click OK.

Step 4. At this page, it seems like the SSD partition has been formatted. Actually, it is just a preview. You need to click Apply on the upper left corner to execute the pending operation.

By using this hard drive formatting software, I successfully formatted SSD Windows 10 in just a few clicks. And its other features are also very useful for SSD partition management. The best partition tool I’ve ever used!Click to Tweet

Since MiniTool Partition Wizard Free is such a user-friendly partition manager and trusted by tens of millions of users, why not have a try? Do not hesitate to get one now!

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Format SSD Windows 10 with CMD

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is really convenient for home users to manage disks and partitions. However, for users who really don’t want to resort to third-party software, here is another way to format SSD – that is using CMD.

CMD is also known as cmd.exe or Command Prompt, which is a command line interpreter application available in most Windows operating systems.

With command line, users can solve all kinds of Windows issues through a command-line interface like create partition, delete partition, format partition, copy files, perform CHKDSK operation to check and repair hard drive issue.

Command prompts are provided for every Windows NT-based operating system including Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2003.

So, if you are running these Windows operating systems, you may also format SSD by typing a few commands in the Command Prompt window provided that you are familiar with CMD.

Now let’s see how to format SSD with CMD in detailed steps.

Step 1. Right-click the Windows Start menu, then choose Run and input cmd to open Command Prompt window. You may also input cmd in the Windows 10 Cortana search box and choose the best match to open Command Prompt Window.

Step 2. When the command line is opened, input diskpart and press Enter. You may see a pop-up window as below. Click Yes to open the Diskpart window.

Step 3. Then input the following commands and press Enter after each one.

• list disk
• select disk * (* represents disk number)
• list partition
• select partition * (* represents partition number)
• format fs=ntfs quick

Here I formatted the partition to NTFS file system. You can also format SSD partition to FAT32 using diskpart according to your needs. If you want to format to exFAT, you can try MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

Step 4. After DiskPart has successfully formatted the SSD partition, you may type exit to close the Diskpart window.

At this time, you have completed formatting. After showing you the above 3 different methods, you may choose one method you like. But if you want to manage SSD partitions in a flexible way and improve SSD performance in the long run, it is recommended to use the all-in-one partition manager – MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

If you accidentally formatted the wrong partition on SSD disk, don’t be panic. You can recover data from formatted partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate Edition’s Data Recovery feature. Click the following button to get one.

By following the steps in this post, I learned three different ways to format SSD and I successfully formatted my SSD in just a few clicks. I would like to share this post with more friends who want to format SSD in an effortless way.Click to Tweet

There are many other drive formatting software on the market like WD Quick Formatter. However, some users reported that they encountered formatting failure when using WD quick formatter to format SSD. And others said this software is not very easy to use.

So if you want to choose third-party software to format SSD, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is your best choice.

Bottom Line

After learning how to format SSD with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition, Window built-in utility Disk Management and CMD commands, you can choose one of the three methods to format SSD Windows 10 or reformat SSD without a hassle. Hope this post helps you.

If you have any question about how to format SSD Windows 10 or you have any other good SSD format tool to recommend, you can leave a message on the following comment zone and we will reply as soon as possible. If you need any help when using MiniTool software, you can contact us via [emailprotected].

How to Format SSD FAQ