Time to Format a Disk (NTFS)

Question

Recently, using Windows 7, I did a full formatting of a Western Digital external USB Powered (500 GB) in NTFS. "I hope its speed is 7200rpm."

Surprisingly, it took almost 5 hours to complete the full format.

With this experience, will it be fair to say that 100 GB NTFS full formatting takes 1 hour?

Additionally, I have a question — Will it take less time if I would have converted FAT32 to NTFS? Note that my Disk was almost 80 % full.

Is it also correct to assume that Full Formatting will increase disk life more than Quick Formatting?

Solution

It is also true to assume that Full Formatting will give long life for the disk than Quick Formatting?

No.

The only difference between full and quick is that a full format also validates every sector of the disk. Both create all the NTFS file system structures in the same way.

Do a full format if you need to force that verification cycle (e.g. when you are not 100% confident of the reliability of the disk).