Hard Drive is 120 GB claims it is 122 GB but say 114 Capacity?

[john_20_28_2000]

I have a Maxtor 120 GB hard drive. When I formatted it, it said the
capacity was 114 GB, but when I right click on the drive and look at
the properties, it says its free space 122 GB in the pie chart and says
114.

122,855,432,192 somehow equals 114 GB. Must be that new math. What
have I done wrong? I do not see anything extra to partition in the
disk management of XP Pro.

 

[Mr Digital]

I think this is something to do with the fact that this is how Windows tells
you the capacity after it takes into account that Windows itself is using a
percantage of disk space.

I seem to remember being told this but i might be mistaken.

Phil.

 

[Zip]

I have a Maxtor 120 GB hard drive. When I formatted it, it said the
capacity was 114 GB, but when I right click on the drive and look at
the properties, it says its free space 122 GB in the pie chart and says
114.

122,855,432,192 somehow equals 114 GB. Must be that new math. What
have I done wrong? I do not see anything extra to partition in the
disk management of XP Pro.

It is new math.

1 GB = 1024 MB
1 MB = 1024 KB
1 KB = 1024 bytes

Therefore:

122,855,432,192 bytes = 119976008 KB = 117164 MB = 114 GB

 

[theyak]

It is new math.

1 GB = 1024 MB
1 MB = 1024 KB
1 KB = 1024 bytes

Therefore:

122,855,432,192 bytes = 119976008 KB = 117164 MB = 114 GB

But on the box the manufacturers use the decimal system to make the
drive sound larger. Just as the television industry does. A 27" tv only
if you measure a certain way, diagonally... They got in trouble for
that, and I guess that affects the HDD people too, because they all put
"For hard drives, a gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes" on the packaging.

 

[Zip]

But on the box the manufacturers use the decimal system to make the
drive sound larger. Just as the television industry does. A 27" tv only
if you measure a certain way, diagonally... They got in trouble for
that, and I guess that affects the HDD people too, because they all put
"For hard drives, a gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes" on the packaging.

Oh, I agree. I was just correcting the OP's supposition that 122 billion
bytes = 122 GB, because it doesn't. And while HD manufacturers might try and
mislead consumers regarding the disk capacity, windows is usually pretty
accurate in reporting true capacity. Effeciently utilizing that reported
capacity, however, is another issue altogether.

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

Oh, I agree. I was just correcting the OP's supposition that 122
billion bytes = 122 GB, because it doesn't. And while HD
manufacturers might try and mislead consumers regarding the disk
capacity, windows is usually pretty accurate in reporting true
capacity. Effeciently utilizing that reported capacity, however, is
another issue altogether.

No one is misleading anybody. It's just two different ways of calculating
the same thing - if it was suddenly decided that it should be calculated in
hexadecimal then the result would be different again (obviously) - computers
use binary, we use decimal, it just so happens that binary gives a 'lesser'
figure - the physical space on the disk is identical, the only thing that's
changed is how it's calculated.

 

[pt]

MPT> No one is misleading anybody. It's just two different ways of
MPT> calculating the same thing - if it was suddenly decided that it should
MPT> be calculated in hexadecimal then the result would be different again
MPT> (obviously) - computers use binary, we use decimal, it just so happens
MPT> that binary gives a 'lesser' figure - the physical space on the disk
MPT> is identical, the only thing that's changed is how it's calculated.

In the one place where it actually counts, the drive has a capacity of
114GB. Selling it as 120GB serves absolutely no other purpose than to
mislead the consumer.

pt

 

[john_20_28_2000]

It says on the box 120GB. That isn't 114GB. But I'll go back and look
at the math.

 

[john_20_28_2000]

So is 114GB correct if it says 120GB on the box?

 

[pt]

john

j> It says on the box 120GB. That isn't 114GB. But I'll go back and look
j> at the math.

After more thought, I suppose what they're really trying to say is that the
drive will hold 122,855,432,192 bytes of information and then rounding that
to be 120GB. While I suppose that is technically as far as capacity is
concerned, the computer still think's it is 114GB. Both numbers are correct
when taken from different points of view. I think for less confusion, they
should sell it as 114 and if you get and 'extra 6 gig' out of it, you'll
think it was a bonus. <g>

pt

 

[Rene]

So is 114GB correct if it says 120GB on the box?

Yes.

Rene

 

[Vanguard]

I have a Maxtor 120 GB hard drive. When I formatted it, it said the
capacity was 114 GB, but when I right click on the drive and look at
the properties, it says its free space 122 GB in the pie chart and
says
114.

122,855,432,192 somehow equals 114 GB. Must be that new math. What
have I done wrong? I do not see anything extra to partition in the
disk management of XP Pro.

Humans are used to decimal numbers (10^n). Computers know binary (2^n).
You've never had to do base-N math, like base 10 (decimal), base 16
(hexidecimal), base 8 (octal), base 2 (binary), or base 7 (hey, teachers
always love to teach principals, not practicality)?

A kilobyte to you = 10^3 bytes = 1000 bytes
A kilobyte to a computer = 2^10 bytes = 1024 bytes

A million bytes to you = 10^6 bytes = 1,000,000 bytes
A million bytes to a computer = 2^20 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes

A gigabyte to you = 10^9 bytes = 1,000,000,000 bytes
A gigabyte to a computer = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes

So take the 114GB (binary based) capacity reported by Windows and
multiply it by 1.074 (the difference between decimal and binary) and you
get the 120GB *decimal* capacity the marketers announce on the
packaging.

120,000,000 bytes capacity / 1,073,741,824 bytes = 111.8

Welcome to the world of computers where you must know the base for a
number to know what it means (if the digits don't reveal the base, and
in hexadecimal which uses A, B, C, D, E, F for digits above 9). They
use the decimal number rather than the binary number because that makes
their product look better. It's called marketing and you should know
better by now.

You got what you paid for. You bought a product that said it had a
120,000,000 byte capacity. That's what you got. You're used to using
decimal numbers so that's what was presented to you. You use a computer
that only understands binary (on and off) so it will have to use its
counting scheme to figure numbers. Imagine if you bought something that
said 12 to the box. Well, do you get 12 items, or 10 items (because 12
octal is 10 decimal), or 18 items (because 18 hexidecimal is 18
decimal). The product used decimal because that is what YOU were taught
to recognize.

 

[Vanguard]

I have a Maxtor 120 GB hard drive. When I formatted it, it said the
capacity was 114 GB, but when I right click on the drive and look at
the properties, it says its free space 122 GB in the pie chart and
says
114.

122,855,432,192 somehow equals 114 GB. Must be that new math. What
have I done wrong? I do not see anything extra to partition in the
disk management of XP Pro.

Humans are used to decimal numbers (10^n). Computers know binary (2^n).
You've never had to do base-N math, like base 10 (decimal), base 16
(hexidecimal), base 8 (octal), base 2 (binary), or base 7 (hey, teachers
always love to teach principals, not practicality)?

A kilobyte to you = 10^3 bytes = 1000 bytes
A kilobyte to a computer = 2^10 bytes = 1024 bytes

A million bytes to you = 10^6 bytes = 1,000,000 bytes
A million bytes to a computer = 2^20 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes

A gigabyte to you = 10^9 bytes = 1,000,000,000 bytes
A gigabyte to a computer = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes

So take the 114GB (binary based) capacity reported by Windows and
multiply it by 1.074 (the difference between decimal and binary) and you
get the 120GB *decimal* capacity the marketers announce on the
packaging.

120,000,000 bytes capacity / 1,073,741,824 bytes = 111.8

Welcome to the world of computers where you must know the base for a
number to know what it means (if the digits don't reveal the base, and
in hexadecimal which uses A, B, C, D, E, F for digits above 9). They
use the decimal number rather than the binary number because that makes
their product look better. It's called marketing and you should know
better by now.

You got what you paid for. You bought a product that said it had a
120,000,000 byte capacity. That's what you got. You're used to using
decimal numbers so that's what was presented to you. You use a computer
that only understands binary (on and off) so it will have to use its
counting scheme to figure numbers. Imagine if you bought something that
said 12 to the box. Well, do you get 12 items, or 10 items (because 12
octal is 10 decimal), or 18 items (because 18 hexidecimal is 18
decimal). The product used decimal because that is what YOU were taught
to recognize.

 

[kony]

I have a Maxtor 120 GB hard drive. When I formatted it, it said the
capacity was 114 GB, but when I right click on the drive and look at
the properties, it says its free space 122 GB in the pie chart and says
114.

122,855,432,192 somehow equals 114 GB. Must be that new math. What
have I done wrong? I do not see anything extra to partition in the
disk management of XP Pro.

This is the age-old question, a Google search would've found
the answer for you.

Basically, binary "1024" = "1000" decimal according to a HDD
manufacturer who likes the bigger numbers, but the operating
system uses the binary system because that's how data is
stored.

122,855,432,192 Bytes is considered by an OS that uses:

1024 Bytes per KB, not 1000 Bytes per KB, and
1024 KB per MB
1024 MB per GB

122,855,432,192 / (1024 * 1024 * 1024) = 114.4 GB

 

[kony]

No one is misleading anybody. It's just two different ways of calculating
the same thing - if it was suddenly decided that it should be calculated in
hexadecimal then the result would be different again (obviously) - computers
use binary, we use decimal, it just so happens that binary gives a 'lesser'
figure - the physical space on the disk is identical, the only thing that's
changed is how it's calculated.

BUT, it can't suddenly be decided to use Hex unless this was
how the data is stored, because it is a term describing the
storage capacity. Since Humans cannot enumerate the space,
because it can only be done by a computer using binary
storage, the only truely valid amount of "storage" it
provides cannot be in a human decimal format. Using decimal
to note a drive size is simply invalid... they aren't
physical objects like pebbles, they are logical allocations
upon a finer granularity of medium that only exist in a
binary system.

In other words, the term "byte" cannot be valid in a decimal
system. if they'd made-up a new term instead of Megabytes,
like MegaBLOBS, then they'd be in the clear.

 

[theyak]

BUT, it can't suddenly be decided to use Hex unless this was
how the data is stored, because it is a term describing the
storage capacity. Since Humans cannot enumerate the space,
because it can only be done by a computer using binary
storage, the only truely valid amount of "storage" it
provides cannot be in a human decimal format. Using decimal
to note a drive size is simply invalid... they aren't
physical objects like pebbles, they are logical allocations
upon a finer granularity of medium that only exist in a
binary system.

In other words, the term "byte" cannot be valid in a decimal
system. if they'd made-up a new term instead of Megabytes,
like MegaBLOBS, then they'd be in the clear.

Well, they do put a little asterisk on the box: * for HDD's, a GB = 1
billion bytes.

But it real world terms it doesn't.

It's marketing, people. We've dealt with this since we've been buying
hard drives.

 

[Zip]

So is 114GB correct if it says 120GB on the box?

It also says "a bag of potato chips" in the store, but when you open it,
there's only a half a bag in there...

 

[DaveW]

114 GB is the FORMATTED capacity of the unformatted 120 GB rated harddrive.

 

[William W. Plummer]

Well, they do put a little asterisk on the box: * for HDD's, a GB = 1
billion bytes.

But it real world terms it doesn't.

It's marketing, people. We've dealt with this since we've been buying
hard drives.

For most people, a "thousand" or "1K" is 1000. But computer people use
2**10 = 1024 . A million is 10**6 for most people but 2**20 =
1,048,576 for computer types. Likewise for "giga" or 10**9. The
difference isn't much but it sure does make paranoids think somebody is
stealing their disk space.

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

BUT, it can't suddenly be decided to use Hex unless this was
how the data is stored, because it is a term describing the
storage capacity. Since Humans cannot enumerate the space,
because it can only be done by a computer using binary
storage, the only truely valid amount of "storage" it
provides cannot be in a human decimal format. Using decimal
to note a drive size is simply invalid... they aren't
physical objects like pebbles, they are logical allocations
upon a finer granularity of medium that only exist in a
binary system.

In other words, the term "byte" cannot be valid in a decimal
system. if they'd made-up a new term instead of Megabytes,
like MegaBLOBS, then they'd be in the clear.

Dave - I'm female. You have to remember that we women know nothing about
cars, computers or the inner workings of the male psyche. I am also dyslexic
which means I am no good at expressing what I mean. *I* know what I'm trying
to say - unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean anyone else does! D