SSD capacity question

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  • DoaM
    DoaM Posts: 11,863 Forumite
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    Neil_Jones wrote: »
    It's not a 7% reduction at all.

    Is 465 less than 500? Yes? Then it's a reduction (versus the stated capacity). ;)

    I know how bits and bytes work, and how disk manufacturers specify capacity, thanks. :)
  • Neil_Jones
    Neil_Jones Posts: 8,913 Forumite
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    DoaM wrote: »
    Is 465 less than 500? Yes? Then it's a reduction (versus the stated capacity). ;)

    I know how bits and bytes work, and how disk manufacturers specify capacity, thanks. :)

    Contrary to how it might have looked the post wasn't purely for your benefit.
  • almillar
    almillar Posts: 8,621 Forumite
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    thank you.
    in disk management the following are listed:
    260MB EFI System partition
    430.79GB NTFS C:
    958MB Primary Partition
    33.66GB Recovery Primary Partition
    So: 500GB = 500,000,000,000 (bytes) / (1024*1024*1024) = 465.66 GB.

    For a 480Gb the same calculation comes out as 447.03Gb,

    Excellent, so your 480Gbyte drive is 447 in the sortof decimal way. Take off the 0.260Gb EFI and 0.958GB 'Primary Partition (I'm not sure what that is), and the 33.66GB recovery partition, and we end up with 445.122Gb - much closer to the 430GB you're being quoted.
    We're still 15Gb out, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to reconcile that, and neither should you. A difference that small CAN be put down to 1024bytes vs 1000bytes that DoaM referenced.

    If you need more disk space, look into getting rid of that 30 odd Gb recovery partition. You can delete the partition and expand your 430 one into it, with files intact.
  • AndyPix
    AndyPix Posts: 4,847 Forumite
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    edited 17 May 2019 at 2:23PM
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    Neil_Jones wrote: »
    So: 500GB = 500,000,000,000 (bytes).


    Yes but it doesnt though does it .


    As we both know, 500GB = 536,870,912,000 bytes ..
    So why are the drive manufacturers allowed to sell something with less capacity as '500GB' :huh:
  • Neil_Jones
    Neil_Jones Posts: 8,913 Forumite
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    AndyPix wrote: »
    Yes but it doesnt though does it .


    As we both know, 5GB = 536,870,912,000 bytes ..
    So why are the drive manufacturers allowed to sell something with less capacity as '500GB' :huh:

    500Gb unformatted capacity.

    Issue came about because somebody in the past decided it would be more consumer friendly to sell the drives by selling them in Base 10 format as opposed to Base 2, and back then you were doing well to have a hard drive in three digit Megabyte formats so you weren't actually losing much.

    Of course as the drive sizes crept up the discrepancy increased, and now a 3Tb drive only comes up as 2.69Tb. It might be considered lame by todays standards but technically it is correct.

    Apparently Apple "fixed" this in iOS 11 and whatever followed Leopard as a MacOS so a 1Tb drive actually comes up as a 1Tb drive and not 931Gb.
  • tonygold
    tonygold Posts: 1,127 Forumite
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    almillar wrote: »
    Excellent, so your 480Gbyte drive is 447 in the sortof decimal way. Take off the 0.260Gb EFI and 0.958GB 'Primary Partition (I'm not sure what that is), and the 33.66GB recovery partition, and we end up with 445.122Gb - much closer to the 430GB you're being quoted.
    We're still 15Gb out, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to reconcile that, and neither should you. A difference that small CAN be put down to 1024bytes vs 1000bytes that DoaM referenced.

    If you need more disk space, look into getting rid of that 30 odd Gb recovery partition. You can delete the partition and expand your 430 one into it, with files intact.

    many thanks almillar for your detailed explanation. i am not desperate for additional storage space so will not delete the recovery partition. out of interest, if i needed to, how would i access and / or use this recovery partition?

    many thanks again.
  • Neil_Jones
    Neil_Jones Posts: 8,913 Forumite
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    tonygold wrote: »
    many thanks almillar for your detailed explanation. i am not desperate for additional storage space so will not delete the recovery partition. out of interest, if i needed to, how would i access and / or use this recovery partition?

    many thanks again.


    Normally you would either hold down a key during startup (typically F9 or F11) and then get to it that way. However that tends to break when you copy the drive to a new one so it may be arbitrary anyway.

    All it basically means is if you can't get to it you lose access to the bulk of the preinstalled software which I dare say most people don't use anyway. The important stuff you can get from the manufacturer's website.
  • tonygold
    tonygold Posts: 1,127 Forumite
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    Neil_Jones wrote: »
    Normally you would either hold down a key during startup (typically F9 or F11) and then get to it that way. However that tends to break when you copy the drive to a new one so it may be arbitrary anyway.

    All it basically means is if you can't get to it you lose access to the bulk of the preinstalled software which I dare say most people don't use anyway. The important stuff you can get from the manufacturer's website.

    thank you Neil
  • Frozen_up_north
    Frozen_up_north Posts: 2,420 Forumite
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    A recovery partition isn’t much use these days. It will contain the “years old” Windows version and games/AV junk that came originally. Doing a restore will get you back to square one and take days to bring up to where you are now.

    Keep a regular “full” backup of your current installation on an external drive and you won’t need a recovery partition.

    BTW, you can put a removed laptop hard drive into a USB powered pocket size case for backups, or as carry around extra storage. The housing I recently bought is item 191632943581 from eBay (UK shipped Orico housing, currently listed at £7.79).
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