There definitely isn’t an option in the menus to format the drive through the Prime 4 hardware. If it’s possible to format with the drive installed then you’ll need the computer to do it. Just not sure if the drive itself is visible on the computer if it doesn’t have the partition structure created. I guess it depends on whether the Prime 4 provides access to the low level formatting on the drive so that you can create the partition, or if it only allows access through to an existing partition.
You can put the SSD straight into the P4 and format it in there. when you put the P4 in controller mode from the utility menu you laptop will recognize it basically as a big external drive and you can format it then. This is also how you can add music to and update your crates etc once the drive is working
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Morning all,
- Yes you can put the SSD drive into Prime 4
- Connect via USB B cable to a laptop/Pc
- Put Prime 4 in Controller mode (Computer icon)
- The Laptop will now see the drive inside Prime 4 and you can format to Fat/Fat 32
- Once done Engine Prime will see the drive like a regular USB stick.
- Fill with music!
Hope this helps
J
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Thanks Jay
What is the reasoning for reccomending FAT32 over EXfat as Exfat is technicaly the better/faster format?
All please note we have updated our FAQ on the Prime 4 after further testing:
What size hard drive can I install into the Prime 4?
The Prime 4 supports a 2.5" SATA hard drive; either HDD or SSD. There is no drive capacity size limitation, just be sure the hard drive is formatted in one of the supported file system types; FAT32 or exFAT.
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Well Jay,
I think you just made a lot of hoarders happy 
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They recommend exfat or fat 32, but make sure you select master boot record, so I think answer is no. I chose exfat and master boot record and it works fine in my prime 4, also you might want to get a USB to ssd adapter to prepare and transfer all your tracks to it in engine prime before installing it.
Put the SSD in Prime4 and connect USB cable between pc and Prime4.
Reboot Prime4 in controller mode and the Prime4 simply IS the USB adapter.
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Won’t it work with gpt ?
when formatting a drive does it matter if its quick format or full format when doing so?
Neither - as long as it’s exFat or Fat32 
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Personally, but that is just me (hence personally, duh! LOL), I would never Quick Format a disk for our kind of use. Here’s why.
Quick Format only writes a new master boot record (MBR) to the disk and creates an empty index (the FAT in FAT32 or exFat) as there is nothing on the disk yet. It does NOT, however, check for bad sectors nor does it erase any information already on the disk.
For a new drive, checking for bad sectors is a good thing to get the best possible starting point. For an existing drive checking for bad sectors is also good (it IS a used driver after all) and you want all pre-existing data gone. During a full format a 0 will be written to every memory place giving you a drive (almost) as clean as a new one.
Also, having run into problems with native formatting tools in both Windows & Mac (while formatted according to correct settings drives still not working properly in third-party equipment), I have switched to a third-party tool for all HDD/SDD/USB related activities. My personal (free) tool of choice is MiniTool Partition Wizard, but there are others.
My 3 cents as usual.
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I followed as per instructions however I was not able to format the SSD via Prime 4. Nothing appeared on my desktop. Showing driver not available.I will now utilise a USB adaptor for the SSD and will format via my laptop then attach SSD to Prime 4.I have read other comments it does appear that’s the way to go. Hopefully that will work.
I could only format my new SSD separately on my pc. For me it was not possible to do it via controller mode on two different (high) end PC’s. Currently this does not seem possible on windows pc’s. Only route is format the new drive separately and then place it in the P4.
Are you running Windows? It can be a little trickier to format any new disk in Windows so I’d recommend checking online for your OS platform for formatting instructions.
@ Jay, are you asking me? Regards
I will thanks for your help.
Thats what I thought, thanks for letting me know.