On Dec 3, 2003, at 8:47 PM, Loren Schooley wrote: > > The option to "zero all data" it is intended simply to ensure that a > platter > is free from all previous data images before formatting. What's the big > mystery? There is no mystery at all. You are correct in that 'zero all data' is not a bad idea if you intend to be giving the drive to another person and don't want them to be able to recover data. But the thought that the drive will be any faster because you've done so, well, it just ain't so. Drives read 1 and 0's at the same speed.