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external SSD reformat

Is it ok to format my eternal SSD often ?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 18, 2022 1:12 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 18, 2022 1:43 PM

How often is often and why as often as you are thinking? Every write action contributes to shortening an SSDs life. However, they last a lot longer than most people seem to think.


What's more important is not that you're doing it but why. Once formatted, it should not need reformatting unless something is wrong, you change to a Windows system, or you repurpose the drive.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 18, 2022 1:43 PM in response to help567

How often is often and why as often as you are thinking? Every write action contributes to shortening an SSDs life. However, they last a lot longer than most people seem to think.


What's more important is not that you're doing it but why. Once formatted, it should not need reformatting unless something is wrong, you change to a Windows system, or you repurpose the drive.

Apr 18, 2022 4:28 PM in response to help567

help567 wrote:

I’m glad I asked
thank you
I have a SanDisk 2TB EXTREME PRO and I use it for editing video with my MacBook Pro . A project consumes 1.5 TB when I complete the project I thought it would be okay to reformat the SSD
I guess this is not a good idea. Thank you


If you no longer need the data on the drive just delete the data. Or, move the data to another drive. No need to reformat.

external SSD reformat

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