1Tb drive = 931Gb of space?

Wings_of_Ambition

Hi all,

I got given a 1Tb Seagate external drive for Christmas, but on plugging it in, it says there is only 931Gb. When checking the properties of the drive, it again says the capacity is 931Gb but also has a value of 1,000,202,272,768 bytes.

Am I actually getting 1Tb of space here?

Cheers

Wings

aliEnRIK

Yep, thats about right

Money_Grabber13579

After formatting, you will lose a bit of space. But what is mostly causing the problem is that 1GB does not equal 1000MB. 1 MB doesn't equal 1000KB either. It's actually 1024. So scaled up, this is where the difference lies.

Bikertov

To be more precise, (in computer terms) there are:

1024 bytes to a KiloByte (KB),
1,048,576 Bytes to a MegaByte (MB) (1024 x 1024)
1,073,741,824 Bytes to a GigaByte (GB) (1024 x 1024 x 1024)

Hence 1,000,202,272,768 bytes - 1TB (in mathematical terms) equals 931.51 GB (in computer terms)

This is a way that the disc manufacturers can sell a drive by making out it is bigger than it really is, as they incorrectly play on the meanings of KB, MB and GB.

prowla

Bikertov wrote: »

To be more precise, (in computer terms) there are:

1024 bytes to a KiloByte (KB),
1,048,576 Bytes to a MegaByte (MB) (1024 x 1024)
1,073,741,824 Bytes to a GigaByte (GB) (1024 x 1024 x 1024)

Hence 1,000,202,272,768 bytes - 1TB (in mathematical terms) equals 931.51 GB (in computer terms)

This is a way that the disc manufacturers can sell a drive by making out it is bigger than it really is, as they incorrectly play on the meanings of KB, MB and GB.

Well, in all other walks of life, 1k means 1000, so it can be argued that the disk manufacturers are correct, and the computer is reporting the numbers incorrectly because it is easier for a computer to round 1k up to 1024.

Bikertov

prowla wrote: »

Well, in all other walks of life, 1k means 1000, so it can be argued that the disk manufacturers are correct, and the computer is reporting the numbers incorrectly because it is easier for a computer to round 1k up to 1024.

True, but in computing it is used to define 2 to-the-power-of 10

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

They are just trying to kid you into thinking you are getting more than you are. Remember, it is a computer storage device, so should be described in those terms.

Money_Grabber13579

So what we should be talking about is how many gibibytes the hard drive is? Why don't manufacturers describe it as that then?

Sparhawke

Because "1 terabyte!!!" sounds far more impressive than "931.5mb" and people respond more to simple round numbers than absolutes.

davester

1 TB is far more impressive than 931.5 MB If you said you sell me a HDD that small I have SD cards that hold more.



But formating loses some. Its also worth partitioning it too so that the computer works a little faster of finding the files you want. also makes your electronic fileing cabinet a little more organised that a mass of folders all in the same draw.

Bikertov

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

So what we should be talking about is how many gibibytes the hard drive is? Why don't manufacturers describe it as that then?

Only if you follow the IEC. If you are a JEDEC kind a guy, you can still call it a Giga

davester

haha its decended into a nit picking session. Happy New Year.