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Hard drive size doesn't add up

post #1 of 4
8/27/06 at 11:01am
Thread Starter 
I noticed on my gateway 3414, that the hard drive size capacity is showing up as 100,019,372,032 bytes, but total size is only 93.1 GB. I know that it usually is a couple GB less than advertised size, but where are the other 7 GB? Other 3414 users showing that same?
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post #2 of 4
8/27/06 at 11:18am
http://www.wiebetech.com/whitepapers...ualBillion.pdf
by the way, one of my 60gb only shows 56+gigo

cheers ...
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post #3 of 4
8/27/06 at 11:31am
interesting, came across this one.
"At work I normally buy Seagate drives and expect 1 GB = 1,024,000,000 bytes, so 100 GB will show up in Windows as 100GB. The fine print on this box explains Maxtor defines 1GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes, which consequently shows up as 93 GB in Windows. The system requirements list Windows 2000 Pro, XP Pro or XP Home, so they are being purposefully deceitful in this definition of a GB. "

link at :http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...lance&n=172282

cheers ...
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post #4 of 4
8/27/06 at 2:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FlameOut
I noticed on my gateway 3414, that the hard drive size capacity is showing up as 100,019,372,032 bytes, but total size is only 93.1 GB. I know that it usually is a couple GB less than advertised size, but where are the other 7 GB? Other 3414 users showing that same?
Almost all HDD manufacturers report that way. 1KB is actually 1024 bytes, 1MB is actually 1024KB, 1GB is actually 1024MB. With that in mind, there are two ways you can figure what the actual size of the drive is. 1) bytes divided by 1024 to get to KB. K divided by 1024 to get MB. MB divided by 1024 to get GB. 2) You are moving across 3 units of 1024 to get from bytes to GB. divide your total bytes by (1024 cubed). Technically (mathematically), 100GB is correct for that drive. The 93GB display should technically (according to the IEC standards) read 93GiB. Just as 1GB of RAM should technically read 1GiB. Check almost any drive out there and you will find the same results. Edit: If you wanted to get real technical about it, the HDD manufacturer is correct in calling it a 100GB drive. MS is incorrect in calling it 93.1GB. It is actually 93.1GiB. and side note: everything in "computer language" must be stripped down to bits (indicated by a lower case "b"). There are 8 bits in one byte. That is the reason for the discrepency. 1024 is the closer to 1000 you could get when working with bits. 8x8,16x8, 32x8, 64x8, etc. That gets into another whole discussion on IEC standards. And, why some people think they are getting ripped on things like connection speed. a 3Mb/s internet connection (the way your provider would advertise it) is actually only ~375KB/s (the way IE reports the speed the file downloads).
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