250GB Hard Drive shows up as 238GB Partition in XP

[dumbtroll]

This is a single partition, maxed out to 238Gigs.

But where did the other 12Gigs go?

This was NTSF, i believe.

Thanks much for any advice.....

 

[cf]

let it be known on Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:02:36 -0800 (PST)
(e-mail address removed) scribed:

|This is a single partition, maxed out to 238Gigs.
|
|But where did the other 12Gigs go?
|
|This was NTSF, i believe.
|
|Thanks much for any advice.....
|
|

The 238Gb's is probably correct. HD manufacturers usually measure disk space a little different than what Windows does (1000 vs 1024), plus that was the drive's capacity BEFORE formatting.

hth

 

[Rich Barry]

They talk about the anomaly here. 1G is actually 1024MB not 1000.

http://www.associateprograms.com/discus/ftopic4312.html

 

[Plato]

This is a single partition, maxed out to 238Gigs.

But where did the other 12Gigs go?

Perfectly normal.

 

[M.I.5¾]

They talk about the anomaly here. 1G is actually 1024MB not 1000.

http://www.associateprograms.com/discus/ftopic4312.html

That site just adds to the confusion. Technically 1 Gigabyte is
1,000,000,000 bytes, the Giga prefix meaning 'multiplied by 10 to the 9th
power (10^9)'. Because the computer world works in binary, 1 Gigabyte has
come to mean 1,073,741,824 bytes (which is 2 to the power of 30 (2^30), a
round binary number.

To try to cut through the confusion, the International Electrotechnical
Commision (IEC) now recommends the use of the term 'Gibibyte' to refer to
2^30 bytes, though it has not gained particularly wide useage at present.

Meanwhile, memory sizes (including FLASH drives) tend to be measured in
Computer Gigabytes (or Gibibytes), simply because it happens to be easier to
make them that way. However, hard disk drives are measured in true
Gigabytes (10^9 bytes) because the manufacturers can make them slightly
cheaper that way.

To answer the OP's point: 250 Gigabytes works out to just over 232
gibibytes, though the quoted size is usually a nominal size and indeed, the
OP's disk is a little larger.

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

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

 

[Peter Foldes]

That is normal. Nothing wrong

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

This is a single partition, maxed out to 238Gigs.

But where did the other 12Gigs go?

There is no other 12GB.

All hard drive manufacturers define 1GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes, while
the rest of the computer world, including Windows, defines it as 2 to
the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. So a 250 billion byte drive is
actually a little under 233GB. Some people point out that the official
international standard defines the "G" of GB as one billion, not
1,073,741,824. Correct though they are, using the binary value of GB
is so well established in the computer world that I consider using the
a decimal value of a billion to be deceptive marketing.

If you are getting 238GB out of a 250 billion byte drive, the drive is
actually a little bigger than its advertised capacity.

This was NTSF, i believe.

That's "NTFS," but it doesn't matter.

 

[Richard]

I have a drive that is defined as 250 GB with one partition and it reads as
232.4 GB. So it sounds like you are correct.

 

[dumbtroll]

That site just adds to the confusion. �Technically 1 Gigabyte is
1,000,000,000 bytes, the Giga prefix meaning 'multiplied by 10 to the 9th
power (10^9)'. �Because the computer world works in binary, 1 Gigabyte has
come to mean 1,073,741,824 bytes (which is 2 to the power of 30 (2^30), a
round binary number.

To try to cut through the confusion, the International Electrotechnical
Commision (IEC) now recommends the use of the term 'Gibibyte' to refer to
2^30 bytes, though it has not gained particularly wide useage at present.

Meanwhile, memory sizes (including FLASH drives) tend to be measured in
Computer Gigabytes (or Gibibytes), simply because it happens to be easier to
make them that way. �However, hard disk drives are measured in true
Gigabytes (10^9 bytes) because the manufacturers can make them slightly
cheaper that way.

To answer the OP's point: 250 Gigabytes works out to just over 232
gibibytes, though the quoted size is usually a nominal size and indeed, the
OP's disk is a little larger.

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

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






- Show quoted text -

Thanks for the very thorough explaination.

It appears someone even sued for false advertising!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix#Legal_disputes


Is there any benefit to making smaller partitions, instead of
just one huge primary partition? Someone claimed there are certain
cases where it's better to make many smaller partitions.

Thanks to all who responded. This Western Digital drive
is indeed "whisper quiet"! I can't believe how near-silent computer
fans/drives are now-a-days!

 

[Lil' Dave]

Wasn't really noticable to the average user until the last few years when
the difference noticed upon format completion was large enough. MS also
uses the GB description for properties of large enough partitions. Its the
binary form.

Also, after partitioning and formatting, some hard disk space is used for
the mbr, partition(s), and file table within the partition.

Some space on a hard drive may be mapped out for use. Such as spare
sectors. Invisible to the user.

--
Dave
Profound is we're here due to a chance arrangement
of chemicals in the ocean billions of years ago.
More profound is we made it to the top of the food
chain per our reasoning abilities.
Most profound is the denial of why we may
be on the way out.