PS3 HDD Upgrade: Questions

I'm going to purchase a new hard drive this next week, but I still have questions as to which one to buy. Both 500GB (Samsung/Western Digital) have good reviews. The negative reviews mention a "clicking" sound, but most of those users put them in Macbooks, not PS3.

1. Is that an issue in the PS3?

2. I've read that after formatting, a 500GB drive shows as 415 or 465. If I was to purchase a 320GB drive would I lose the same amount of space after formatting?

3. Which brand would you reccomend: Samsung or Western Digital? 500GB or 320GB?

4. When copying game save files to a flash/usb drive, does the thumb drive have to be formatted in FAT32? Is that something I do separate, or will the PS3 prompt me to do so?

Thanks in advance for the help. I just want to get a quality HDD and make sure I do this right. I've read about it for a couple weeks now, and I just want to get it done.

500GB = formatting = 465GB = OS = 416GB = "416GB Sony PlayStation 3"

Yes the 320GB will format w/ OS

Do I only need to back up my saved game files? Will the PS3 automatically re-install the PS3 Operating System? Is there anything else I NEED to back up?

Also, how do I format my 8gb usb flash drive in fat32 so the ps3 will recognize it?

I just upgrade to a 320GB drive today. I did a backup before I began. The only thing the PS3 does'nt back up are trophies. But Isaved my games saves and updates, music , photos, videos and PSN Games were are backed up into a 20GB package on an external hard drive I had.

The 320GB drive appeared as 298GB as expected, but whats interesting is an additional 22% of the drive space was gone bringing me down to 263GB. Where did this 35GB go exactly? It can't be the OS, because that is saved on a ROM chip. It sounds logical that it has been reserved for system usage such as cacheing, temporary storage needed for a games, and supplimental applications or emulators. Would it have been better for Sony to set a static amount of disk reserve rather than %22? Because technically the 60GB lost 13GB from this (42GB/55GB) and it was just fine with all games, so that means those of us with larger hard drives are wasting some space because the PS3 runs fine with just 13GB of space resevered when I'm loosing more than 2x that ammount at 35GB and almost 2/3 of which may never be used at all.