Formatting USB drives in Linux from the command line (terminal) is very easy.
In this note i will show how to format an external HDD, SSD or USB flash drive in Linux from the command line using mkfs
utility.
I will provide the examples of disk formatting to the most popular file system types: FAT32
, exFAT
, NTFS
, EXT4
, XFS
and will show how to list the all supported file systems.
Cool Tip: Check the real actual size of USB flash drive or SD card! Read More →
Format USB Drive in Linux
Execute the lsblk
command to identify the name of the partition on the USB drive you want to format:
$ lsblk -fp NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT /dev/sda └─/dev/sda1 LVM2_member c52... ├─/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root ext4 183... / └─/dev/mapper/mint--vg-swap_1 swap 337... [SWAP] /dev/sdb └─/dev/sdb1 vfat USB Drive 345... /media/user/usb0
In the example above, the USB drive is recognized by the operating system as a disk named /dev/sdb
with a single partition /dev/sdb1
mounted on /media/user/usb0
.
Unmount the USB drive if it is mounted:
$ sudo umount /media/user/usb0
Warning: Formatting the USB drive will cause the loose of data on it!
Format a USB drive to the desired format and create a label (optionally):
Format To | Command |
---|---|
FAT32 |
$ sudo mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sdb1 -n "USB Drive" |
exFAT |
$ sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdb1 -n "USB Drive" |
NTFS |
$ sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdb1 -L "USB Drive" |
EXT4 |
$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 -L "USB Drive" |
XFS |
$ sudo mkfs.xfs -f /dev/sdb1 -L "USB Drive" |
List all supported filesystem types:
$ mkfs.<TAB> mkfs.bfs mkfs.ext2 mkfs.hfs mkfs.msdos mkfs.xfs mkfs.btrfs mkfs.ext3 mkfs.hfsplus mkfs.ntfs mkfs.cramfs mkfs.ext4 mkfs.jfs mkfs.reiserfs mkfs.exfat mkfs.fat mkfs.minix mkfs.vfat
Cool Tip: Test performance of HDD, SSD, USB Flash Drive, SD card! Read more →