Archive for the ‘SSD’ Category

How to Format as exFAT from Windows Command-Line

Friday, April 4th, 2014

Following on from my previous post entitled: “SSD Format Details for BlackMagic Cinema Camera”:

Here is how to (re)format a volume as exFAT , whether or not it is already in that format, from Windows 7, via Command-Line (cmd):

  • Windows Start:[cmd]
  • format E: /q /fs:exfat
    • The type of the file system is EXFAT. Enter current volume label for drive E: <your volume’s name>
    • WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE E: WILL BE LOST! Proceed with Format (Y/N)? y
    • QuickFormatting 457860M
    • Format cannot run because the volume is in use by another process.
    • Format may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
    • Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N) y
    • Volume dismounted.  All opened handles to this volume are now invalid.
    • Volume label (15 characters, ENTER for none)? <your volume’s name>
    • Initializing the File Allocation Table (FAT)…
    • Creating file system structures.
    • Format complete.      447.1 GB total disk space.      447.1 GB are available.
    • 131,072 bytes in each allocation unit.     3,662,754 allocation units available on disk.
    • 32 bits in each FAT entry.
    • Volume Serial Number is <your volume’s serial number>

SSD Format Details for BlackMagic Cinema Camera

Thursday, March 20th, 2014

For SSDs for the BlackMagic Cinema Camera (BMCC), the following partition/format scheme works fine, and was found in more than one person’s own such SSDs.   I think in each case they were formatted from Windows, hence the “NTFS”.

  • Device:
    • Partition Scheme Map: MBR (FDisk)
    • Device Block Size: 128 Bytes
      • User manual recommends 128 Bytes
        • Default of Command [format <diskletter>: /q /fs:exfat] itself reports “131,072 bytes in each allocation unit”
        • Default of [Windows7 > Windows Explorer]: [aFile >RtClk> Format…] is instead 512 Bytes, but I have not noticed any problem with that.
  • Partition/Volume:
    • Partition Type: NTFS
    • Format: exFAT

How to reformat from Windows 7: http://blog.davidesp.com/archives/1000