View Full Version : Hard Drive 'Available Space' Question
Lionheart
January 25th, 2009, 17:35
Hey guys,
I notice that when I install or format a drive (HD), that it never shows the full amount on the HD. For instance, a TB HD drive shows 931 Gigs available. A 320 Gig HD shows 298 Gigs available.
Whats up with that??
Bill
Willy
January 25th, 2009, 17:48
They all do that. Not sure of the exact reason.
hey_moe
January 25th, 2009, 17:53
Do you have the retore feature selected and what are you using to format the drives with...and don't say a tooth brush.
IVANOW
January 25th, 2009, 18:00
Mine did the same.
Wiens
January 25th, 2009, 18:03
Picked this off the web:
Hard drives are sold and marketed using decimal gigabytes. That is, a “GB” consists of 1,000,000,000 bytes.
However, computers interpret gigabytes in binary. To a computer, 1 GB = 2^30 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.
The ratio of “actual” to “marketed” file size is the ratio of these two interpretations, or roughly 0.9313225.
Therefore an X-sized (marketed) drive actually has 0.9313225*X of space usable to a computer.
Ex:
------------------------------------------------------
60GB*0.9313225 = 55.88GB
40GB*0.9313225 =37.25 GB
30GB*0.9313225 = 27.94GB
20GB*0.9313225 = 18.6 GB
15GB*0.9313225 = 13.97GB
10GB*0.9313225 = 9.31GB
6GB*0.9313225 = 5.59GB
5GB*0.9313225 = 4.67GB
4GB*0.9313225 = 3.73GB
1GB*0.9313225 = 0.93GB
512MB*0.9313225 = 476.84MB
This was for a question about iPod hard drives but I believe it applies somewhat here....
Kevin
rayrey10
January 25th, 2009, 18:03
I believe it has to with the binary system. Like how a kilobyte is not 1,000 byte but actually 1,024. A "meg" is actually 1,048,576 bytes not 1,000,000. So when you round it off some gets "lost".
Check this article out: http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm
This one also explains it: http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/Address.htm
Surprised I still remember that from college :typing:
Lionheart
January 25th, 2009, 19:41
Picked this off the web:
Hard drives are sold and marketed using decimal gigabytes. That is, a “GB” consists of 1,000,000,000 bytes.
However, computers interpret gigabytes in binary. To a computer, 1 GB = 2^30 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.
The ratio of “actual” to “marketed” file size is the ratio of these two interpretations, or roughly 0.9313225.
Therefore an X-sized (marketed) drive actually has 0.9313225*X of space usable to a computer.
Ex:
------------------------------------------------------
60GB*0.9313225 = 55.88GB
40GB*0.9313225 =37.25 GB
30GB*0.9313225 = 27.94GB
20GB*0.9313225 = 18.6 GB
15GB*0.9313225 = 13.97GB
10GB*0.9313225 = 9.31GB
6GB*0.9313225 = 5.59GB
5GB*0.9313225 = 4.67GB
4GB*0.9313225 = 3.73GB
1GB*0.9313225 = 0.93GB
512MB*0.9313225 = 476.84MB
This was for a question about iPod hard drives but I believe it applies somewhat here....
Kevin
Oh man....! Rip!!!
lol..
arrghh.
So a One Terrabyte has only 931 or so Gigs useful data area instead of 1TB...
Oh well.
:banghead:
Bill
stiz
January 25th, 2009, 22:38
yup "only" 931 gigs! :d
Gnoopey
January 26th, 2009, 02:02
Oh man....! Rip!!!
lol..
arrghh.
So a One Terrabyte has only 931 or so Gigs useful data area instead of 1TB...
snipped ....
.... unfortunately, that's NOT the whole 'story' - LOL - it's even 'worse' :wavey:
We all are 'victims' of the JEDEC <=> SI (IEC) 'war' :monkies:
In this 'bean counters times' - let's do some more byte counting ...
1 TB (terabyte) = 10^12 bytes = 1000 GB
2^40 bytes = 1 TiB (tebibyte) = 1024 GiB
'Problem' is - current MS operating systems (and others) use binary definitions for a GB (or are / were too 'lazy' to write GiB instead of GB) while most storage manufacturers use the SI prefix system.
Please don't get confused, that there are still a lot of sites around, that make a difference between a "binary" and/or a "decimal terabyte" - NONsense IMNSHO!
While the 'Wiens table' is quite accurate for GB 'conversion - it's 'wrong' for the MB conversion. (see over here ==> http://www.brettbits.com/Text/MissingHardDriveSpace/ )
Read:
1 TB ~ 0.9095 TiB
1 GB ~ 0.9313 GiB
1 MB ~ 0.9536 MiB
References:
SI prefixes:
=> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html
=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix
SI binary multiples / binary prefixes:
=> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
JEDEC memory standards => http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JEDEC_memory_standards
On the other hand, if you continue to use 'terrabytes', 'gigs' and 'megs', you're quite 'safe' ;)
'Sorry' Bill but I just couldn't resist - LOL
deKoven
January 26th, 2009, 03:49
Dunno zackly what the fuss is about. Drives have, from the very beginning, had this discrepancy. It's also true of your, excuse the expression, floppys (I know that the newer users among us have no clue what that is.)
:gossip:
Snuffy
January 26th, 2009, 03:52
A certain amount of space is taken by the install of the drive to tell it what it is and how to function. Its also space reserved for the file tables. :)
srgalahad
January 26th, 2009, 07:38
Floppy drive: (n) a 1937 Citroen painted by Salvador Dali
or: a computer disk(ette) in a variety of formats. 8" and 5.25" were a flexible (floppy) form replaced by a 3.5" rigid disk while the "floppy" name stuck.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Floppy_Disk_Drive_8_inch.jpg/728px-Floppy_Disk_Drive_8_inch.jpg
"The DataTrak 8 stores 1.6M bytes of unformatted data and 1.2M bytes of IBM-formatted data. Track-to-track access time is three msecs, average access time is 91 msecs, and settling time is 15 msecs. The drive's data transfer rate is 500K bits per second. Standard options include file protection, programmable door lock, and activity light. The drive is compatible with all existing drives, including IBM.
The DataTrack 8 is immediately available and is priced at $755 in OEM quantities of 1-24."
Snuffy
January 26th, 2009, 07:41
I still have 4 5.25 floppy drives and at least 8 boxes for books from U-Haul with 5.25 software in them. I suppose one day I need to hook the 5.25 to my current machine and burn the 5.25s to a dvd.
:help:
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