Hard Drive

[gletob]

Why is that Hard Drive Makers Advertise a GB as 1000000000 bytes and I get a pc with a *120 GB* hard drive and get 110 GB

[tamoneya]

because they advertise the number of gigabytes but the computer measures the number of gibibytes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte

[dca]

1024 bytes = 1 kB

...ahh forget it, this is what I was going for...

http://www.whatsabyte.com/

[Yes]

Are you sure the PC doesn't have a recovery partition?

[Canis familiaris]

So that they could advertise more "GBs"

(120 * 1000 * 1000)/(1024*1024) = 114.440917969 GB

But it shouldn't be 110GB.

[gletob]

because they advertise the number of gigabytes but the computer measures the number of gibibytes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte

I know that I mean if they advertise 500 GB I want 500 GB

[damis648]

They use 1000 as a base instead of 1024 to confuse us and make us think that we are getting more storage space than we actually are. When we get a 500 GB hard drive, they mean 500000000000 bytes, when you actually need more bytes than that to make that 500GB. To calculate the actual storage space, multiply the capacity on the box to get bytes (by 1000), ie 250GB= 250x1000x1000x1000b and then divide by 1024 to get back to the original measurement, ie 250GB=250x1000x1000x1000b=250000000000b so then divide that to get GB again: 250000000000b/1024/1024/1024= 232.830643654GB. So a 250GB hard drive will only have a storage capacity of 232.830643654GB.

[gletob]

So that they could advertise more "GBs"

(120 * 1000 * 1000)/(1024*1024) = 114.440917969 GB

But it shouldn't be 110GB.

I didn't feel like looking it up it might be 114

[tamoneya]

I know that I mean if they advertise 500 GB I want 500 GB

You got 500 Gigabytes like advertised but your computer always measures in gibibytes which is the correct way to deal with binary things like memory.

[ARhere]

I have seen that with some of the cheaper hard drives. I have even had a person try to argue with me that it is supposed to be 1,000Bytes = 1KByte and that crap.

It is simply an ignorance of computer engineering basics where the counting system of a computer is based upon 16 digits (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F) and not 10 like what humans use.

Why a hard drive manufacture does this? Who knows but I find it hard to believe it is that much cheaper to product a hard drive with a few less sectors, or slightly larger spacing per sector. However I cannot think of another reason.

-AR

P.S.: Maybe it is so they can advertise a faster bits per second speed? That would be a good marketing trick!