How long does it take to format an SD card? How long does it take to format 128GB MicroSD cards? In this post, MiniTool Partition Wizard explores the answers to these questions. Moreover, it lists possible factors that influence the required time for formatting SD cards.

If you are going to format your SD card or encounter SD card taking a long time to format issue, take a look at this post which focuses on “how long to format an SD card”. From this post, you can learn how long does it take to format a memory card (SD card) in normal and abnormal cases.

It is highly recommended to use MiniTool Partition Wizard to format SD cards. Compared with other Windows built-in utilities, it boasts the advantage of breaking FAT32 partition size limit which means that you can create/format/extend a FAT32 partition to 2TB.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

How Long Does It Take to Format an SD Card

For most modern devices, the formatting process shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. However, sometimes formatting an SD card can take you hours and even days. If so, you should find the reasons behind the problem and take corresponding actions to resolve it.

Besides, you also need to know the factors that may have an impact on the SD card formatting time. Well, the section below lists the possible factors. You can pay attention to it.

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Factor to Impact the SD Card Formatting Time

Multiple factors can affect the SD card formatting time. They are summarized as follows.

#1: SD Card Performance and Capacity

The specifications of the SD have a major influence on SD card formatting time. To be specific, a higher-performance SD card with a faster write speed usually formats more quickly than a lower-end one. Besides, the capacity of the SD card also matters a lot. Generally speaking, SD cards with a smaller capacity can be formatted faster than cards with a bigger size.

Further reading:

How long does it take to format 128GB MicroSD cards? According to users from forums.windowcentral.com, fully formatting a 128GB MicroSD card takes 60-90 minutes on Windows 10.

#2: Format Type

A quick format just rewrites the file system (like FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS), while a full format writes a blank to every sector. Therefore, the required time for formatting the SD card is different in two manners.

Tips:
Please refer to this post to learn more differences between quick format and full format.

Quick format: It takes no more than a few minutes.

Full format: Depending on interface and memory capacity, it may take a few hours.

#3: SD Card Formatter

The tools to format the SD card also impact the time required for formatting. As you know, an SD card can be formatted by various SD card formatters like Windows Explorer, Disk Management, Diskpart, MiniTool Partition Wizard, etc.

Tips:
MiniTool Partition Wizard is an all-in-one partition manager for Windows PCs. It can partition hard drives, format SD cards, convert MBR to GPT, perform hard drive speed tests, check disk space usage, clone hard drives, wipe disks, and so on.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

For instance, if your utility has a lot of processing power like a full-sized computer, it will take you less time to format the SD card. As for smaller devices such as phones, gaming consoles, and cameras, they lack the performance of a computer, so a longer time might be needed to format the same card.

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Conclusion

This post tells you how long does it take to format an SD card and collects some factors that impact the formatting time. If you encounter the SD card formatting slow issue, troubleshoot it from the above aspects.

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