Why don't we get as much space as quoted on the hard drives ???

b0nd · 08-18-2006, 07:35 PM

Hello all,
I've seen that if we purchase a 40 Gb h/d, we get around 37Gb of space to work on. And around 74Gb in case of 80 Gb drive.
Why so ???

Actually what i interpretted months ago was that they consider 1000 bytes in 1Kb and 1000 Kbytes in 1 Mbyte and so on. So when we use the '1024' instead of '1000' we get the real space.

e.g lets consider the case of 80 Gb h/d

80 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000
------------------------------ = 74.50
1024 x 1024 x 1024

So is it the reason or something else ???

regards

frob23 · 08-18-2006, 07:41 PM

That's the reason. You were told, or read, correctly.

rioch · 08-18-2006, 08:29 PM

It's the same reason why network peripherals and internet connection speeds are written as 100Megabit rather than <insert number>kilobyte.

Marketing teams know that Mega sounds better than Kilo. Likewise, 80GB sounds better than 74GB.

There is an internationalisation on the true meanings of these terms (i.e. whether 1Kilobyte = 1,000 or 1,024 bits), however in this internationlisation they have new names. e.g. kibibit. Check out wikipedia for the details and possibly more accurate information

b0nd · 08-18-2006, 09:17 PM

Thanks guys.

ExplodingTurnip · 08-18-2006, 10:53 PM

Western Digital recently settled a class action lawsuit over this same issue.