quick format -> indistinguishable after the container is filled?

[krazzz]

Hi,

Because my new container will be the size of Terrabytes, a full format will take too long (and can't be interrupted) so quick format is tempting. As I understand, quick format (or rather, fast format, as I am on windows) will create a container quickly but not overwrite all the existing data. So if I do make a container with quick/fast format, and then fill the container with files until no empty diskspace remains(+), will the end-product be indistinguishable from a full-format? Or do I have to worry about the MFT (Master File Table)? AFAIK, windows reserves space for the MFT but will not specifically (over)write all that reserved space? Will the file system matter? I reckon I will use NTFS...

Thnx,
Krazzz

(+) ...it is my plan to transfer all the relevant data first to the newly fast created container. And then fill the remaining empty space; for this I've written a batch that automatically fills empty container-/disk-space with small containers(++) until there is no empty space left on large container/disk. The batch checks for remaining container-/disk-space with the following code

FOR /F "usebackq tokens=3" %%s IN (DIR /-C /-O /W) DO (
SET FREE_SPACE=%%s
)

(++) ...with a 10GB size such that I can easily interrupt the disk-filling process.

[RichardH]

Pretty sure the answer is "No" here. For one, there will very likely be excess sectors in the final cluster used by the MFT, Bitmap, other metadata... that are never written to, so these will forever contain the original data before you created the container.

You can align the files used for filling to cluster boundary, but you can't force the filesystem to do the same for metadata.

That's just one example, there are probably more.