Used Space after format - can I get rid of NTFS overhead?

I take a raw drive, go to Add a disk to add the partition, select logical (its just an external 2.5" drive) then name the drive and proceed. Even though it says 238.1GB free of 238.1GB when I right click and show properties it says 83MB used. I'm assuming this is metadata info/NTFS overhead. My question is, can I get rid of it? Obviously after a windows drive format it's still there. I never even noticed before if all externals formatted in NTFS come like this.

Also, in that same screen it asks me to assign a drive letter. I use whatever is default but does that mean it will always force-attempt to load that same letter on another machine? What if that drive letter is taken?

Tx,