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Originally Posted by hulten
It takes a long time, but I guess I just have to be patient.
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Indeed, it takes a very long time.
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It doesn't matter if I do this over USB 2 or 3, since it does not actually send data over the connecting; the OS just needs to tell the drive how to format it, right?
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No, that is an incorrect assumption.
A mass storage device presents either 512-byte or 4096-byte blocks to the systems. On a write operation, the OS sends either 512 bytes or 4096 bytes to be written, along with the sector number to write to.
Every filesystem contains a structure for storing and managing data. You know the ones presented to users, such as Files, and file names. Directories, or folders. You also know about access controls, and status flags such as "read only" or "hidden." But filesystems also contain data that is not presented directly to users, such as lists of free space, and structures to manage lists of used space.
All of those structures must be initiated as data stored on the drive before the file system can be established and used. It is this process which we call "formatting."
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..it is an EHCI device, so that's USB 2.
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If you have USB 3 capability, I recommend it be used.