ITB SATA HD - normal or quick format?

[rhegedus]

Just received a Samsung 1TB SATA HD.

I know size doesn't matter, but a normal format of a 1TB SATA HDD will take hours.

Are there any risks with a quick format?

[solarfox]

Depends on if the drive is already pre-formatted for your OS and filesystem of choice. Generally, all a Quick-Format does is blank out the directory entries and space-allocation tables while leaving the disk-structure data (track/sector IDs, etc.) alone, whereas a full format actually erases and rewrites the structure data.

Personally, I always run a full format the first time I install a drive -- I just let it run overnight.

[jagabo]

A full format doesn't write to every sector of the drive. It reads every sector looking for any which can't be read. It then does the same thing as a quick format but marks any bad spots so they won't be used.

Modern drives use invisible (to the O/S) sector remapping. The drive is a little larger than the specified size. Each track has a few reserved sectors. When the drive detects that a sector has gone bad it automatically uses one of the alternates instead. So a new drive really should have no "visible" bad sectors.

That said, I usually do a full format anyway! LOL

[bendixG15]

A regular format scans for bad sectors while a quick format does not.

Read the rest of the story here ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686

[redwudz]

Most times with a new large drive, I just do the quick format. For a used drive of any size, I almost always use a full format.