external hard drive query

[Guest]

I know this isn't strictly speaking about WinXP, but I'm hoping someone can
advise. I just bought a new external 40Gig USB hard drive. There's nothing
shown as being on the drive, but when I check Properties it tells me the
capacity is 37.2 Gig, used space is 65.1Meg and free space is 37.1 Gig. Can
anyone explain these figures?
many thanks.

 

[Tim Slattery]

I know this isn't strictly speaking about WinXP, but I'm hoping someone can
advise. I just bought a new external 40Gig USB hard drive. There's nothing
shown as being on the drive, but when I check Properties it tells me the
capacity is 37.2 Gig, used space is 65.1Meg and free space is 37.1 Gig. Can
anyone explain these figures?

Binary versus decimal definitions of "Gigabyte". The manufacturers
consider a gigabyte to be 10**9 = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Software -
like FDISK, Windows Explorer, and XP's Disk Manager - consider a
gigabyte to be 2**30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes. So your 40 (decimal) GB
drive is 40,000,000,000 / 1,073,741,825 = about 37.25 (binary) GB.

I don't know what's occupying 65.1MB of that total. The file system
has some basic structures that must exist whether any files have been
saved on the volume or not. I don't know where 65.1MB is reasonable
space for these structure on an otherwise empty 37.25GB volume, but I
think it's a possibility.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Tim,

that does at least answer my main query. At least I know there's not
something unpleasant lurking there, or that the manufacturer or supplier
hasn't conned me out of space.

cheers
Phil