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Question about hard drive

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by The Bubba, 2005/01/12.

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  1. 2005/01/12
    The Bubba

    The Bubba Inactive Thread Starter

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    I bought a new built computer and ordered a 120 gig hard drive. After checking it out, I checked my drives and it only showed 111 gig which when multiplied by 1024 still comes very short of what I ordered. Is there something I don't know? A coworker bought a new HP and had the same hard drive size ordered and his machine only showed 107, go figure.
     
    Last edited: 2005/01/12
    The Bubba,
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  2. 2005/01/12
    Steve R Jones

    Steve R Jones SuperGeek Staff

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    Decimal vs. Binary:

    For simplicity and consistency, hard drive manufacturers define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes. This is a decimal (base 10) measurement and is the industry standard. However, certain system BIOSs, FDISK and Windows define a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes. Mac systems also use these values. These are binary (base 2) measurements.

    To Determine Decimal Capacity:
    A decimal capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,000,000,000 using base 10).

    To Determine Binary Capacity:
    A binary capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,073,741,824 using base 2).
     
    Steve R Jones,
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  4. 2005/01/12
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    In addition to what Steve posted part of the drive is taken up with the file system, etc. See thumbnail for capacity of my 120 Gb Maxtor external USB drive.
     
    PeteC,
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  5. 2005/01/12
    The Bubba

    The Bubba Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks for the quick responses. I went to my drives( I had them partitoned),right clicked on them and the amount was shown like yours were. When I had checked them the first time I didn't right click. It's good to know the byte conversion because I had heard that the old conversion was 1024 not 1073. Thanks anyway, I feel much better now :D .
     
    The Bubba,
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  6. 2005/01/12
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    You're welcome :) Hard drive manufacturers tend to use the conversion factor which shows the disk in the best light, i.e. with the largest capacity.
     
    PeteC,
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