Take the 2-minute tour ×  I have a used 3TB SATA hard drive
kicking around that I am planning to use as a replacement in a
Win 7 box.  I don't need all this capacity so was I thinking if
I format it to 1TB I would increase the reliability. My thinking
behind this is based on the following thoughts:    • There would
be more physical 'breathing space' between each sector/track.
• When bad sectors are found, there be a larger pool of
unallocated sectors to bring into use.  Are my assumptions true?
If my assumptions are not true then what happens to all the
unused space? Does the hard drive still format to the same
physical dimensions; thus would my 1TB drive still be squeezing
sectors onto the platter as if it were formatted to 3TB.  Many
thanks!  share|improve this question What do you mean by
"formatting"? Are you referring to creating partitions? Why
would you think that a partition stretches over unused space?
Don't you suspect that would thwart someone's future plans to
put the unused space to use? –  Ka