New Travelstar is 20% short of specs, reasonable?

L

Lars

Hi group,

The other day I bought a new Travelstar HD for a Thinkpad.
The drive is labeled as a HTS541616J9A, 160 GB, 5400 Rpm.

I partioned it, into two parts. And now Windows diskmanager reports it
having a total of only 128 GB.
HD Tune says it is 137 GB, and so does Belarc.

Presently I have another, partioned, Travelstar in the Ultrabay, which
is labeled as 100 GB, and that is exactly what HD Tune says it is.
Windows diskmanager says that one is 93 GB.

I accept some 5 - 7 % are used up when partioning, but with this new
one it would be 20%! I do know that partioning eats up some of the
capacity, but it shouldn't really be this much, or?



Lars
Stockholm
 
M

Michael Cecil

Hi group,

The other day I bought a new Travelstar HD for a Thinkpad.
The drive is labeled as a HTS541616J9A, 160 GB, 5400 Rpm.

I partioned it, into two parts. And now Windows diskmanager reports it
having a total of only 128 GB.
HD Tune says it is 137 GB, and so does Belarc.

Presently I have another, partioned, Travelstar in the Ultrabay, which
is labeled as 100 GB, and that is exactly what HD Tune says it is.
Windows diskmanager says that one is 93 GB.

I accept some 5 - 7 % are used up when partioning, but with this new
one it would be 20%! I do know that partioning eats up some of the
capacity, but it shouldn't really be this much, or?

Read up: http://www.48bitlba.com/
 
A

Arno Wagner

Previously Lars said:
Hi group,
The other day I bought a new Travelstar HD for a Thinkpad.
The drive is labeled as a HTS541616J9A, 160 GB, 5400 Rpm.
I partioned it, into two parts. And now Windows diskmanager reports it
having a total of only 128 GB.
HD Tune says it is 137 GB, and so does Belarc.
Presently I have another, partioned, Travelstar in the Ultrabay, which
is labeled as 100 GB, and that is exactly what HD Tune says it is.
Windows diskmanager says that one is 93 GB.
I accept some 5 - 7 % are used up when partioning, but with this new
one it would be 20%! I do know that partioning eats up some of the
capacity, but it shouldn't really be this much, or?


First, Windows displays wrong numbers. This is well known.
It shows you GiB, but claims to show GB. Explanation here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix

Since 128GiB = 137GB, this explains the different displays.
Windows is also legally wrong, since SI is the law everywhere
(except in a few remaining backward countries).

As to your disk, if you look into the datasheet, you will
find that it has a stated capacity of 160'000'000'000 Bytes.

So why the difference? Not surprisingly, Microsoft gets
it wrong again. Earlier version of Windows have a 137GB
limit. Do you have SP2 installed? (Assuming this is XP...)

To sum up: Stop complaining about the drive manufacturers.
What you are seeing is entirely due to flaws in Windows.

Arno
 
L

Lars

Previously said:

Thank you, right on the money!
As you rightly have understood I have W2K and had forgotten to add the
EnableBigLba string to the register on the Thinkpad.

I went through this on my desktop some years ago when I first
installed a large HD on that one.

After adding that string to the registry Windows found another 21 GB
unallocated space, and now report a total of 149 GB.

Lars
Stockholm
 
L

Lars

Previously said:
So why the difference? Not surprisingly, Microsoft gets
it wrong again. Earlier version of Windows have a 137GB
limit. Do you have SP2 installed? (Assuming this is XP...)

No, W2K. I had forgotten adding that EnableBigLba string to my
Thinkpad. Have fixed it now and voila, another 21 GB!
To sum up: Stop complaining about the drive manufacturers.
What you are seeing is entirely due to flaws in Windows.

I wasn't complaining, just asking.

I still don't really understand why Windows have a different value
than test programs running from within Windows. Is it a 1024 thing?

Lars
Stockholm
 
A

Arno Wagner

No, W2K. I had forgotten adding that EnableBigLba string to my
Thinkpad. Have fixed it now and voila, another 21 GB!
I wasn't complaining, just asking.
Ok.

I still don't really understand why Windows have a different value
than test programs running from within Windows. Is it a 1024 thing?

Exactly. Historically 2^10 was used for 'k' in computers. That makes
sense when you have size-classes, such as memroy sizes, that are
an exact power of two, such as a 1MB RAM module. Disks, however,
can have any number of secors on them and allways have been stated
according to SI with a kB being 1000 Bytes. Microsoft seems to
never have notices and uses the wrong units in its size displays.
The difference between GB and GiB (the correct prefix for a
power-of-two giga) is about 7%.

Arno
 
L

Lars

Previously said:
The difference between GB and GiB (the correct prefix for a
power-of-two giga) is about 7%.

Terrific, there is my 7%! Thanks.


Lars
Stockholm
 
E

Eric Gisin

Arnie **** Up said:
First, Windows displays wrong numbers. This is well known.
It shows you GiB, but claims to show GB. Explanation here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
Hey **** Up, Lunix used KB=2^10 and MB=2^20 a decade ago.
Since 128GiB = 137GB, this explains the different displays.
Windows is also legally wrong, since SI is the law everywhere
(except in a few remaining backward countries).
Hey **** Up, SI does not include bytes.
As to your disk, if you look into the datasheet, you will
find that it has a stated capacity of 160'000'000'000 Bytes.

So why the difference? Not surprisingly, Microsoft gets
it wrong again. Earlier version of Windows have a 137GB
limit. Do you have SP2 installed? (Assuming this is XP...)
Hey **** Up, everyone has SP1/2/3 on XP.
To sum up: Stop complaining about the drive manufacturers.
What you are seeing is entirely due to flaws in Windows.
Hey **** Up, Lunix had the 137GB limit just like Win 2000.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top