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Author Topic: Capacity Size of Drive Under My Computer vs Webpage Different  (Read 4805 times)

chiefnet

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Capacity Size of Drive Under My Computer vs Webpage Different
« on: January 27, 2009, 07:32:02 PM »
Hello all.  I'm new to all this, and learning, but it's been awhile since I built a computer or formatted hard drives.  So I was wondering if you know what a formatted 1TB will usually end up being (i.e. 940GB)?  I formatted mine, and size says 915TB (when I right click under My Computer).  That seems a bit low.  It's the same on two different computers.  I just have BT on there, no iTunes Server, and Volume_1 (and ofcourse whatever system files that gets put on).  When I check through the webpage, the capacity says something different (both the total and used are different under My Computer than on the webpage).  Which one is correct?
Webpage...
Volume Name:    Volume_1
Total Hard Drive Capacity:    983454 MB
Used Space:    368890 MB
Unused Space:    614563 MB 

I have a Western Digital 1TB Caviar Green
« Last Edit: January 27, 2009, 07:40:52 PM by chiefnet »
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ttmcmurry

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Re: Capacity Size of Drive Under My Computer vs Webpage Different
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2009, 08:50:06 PM »
I had a rant the other day on a TomsHardware article about the 2TB Western Digital drive and the fact it's about 185 GB shy of 2,048 GB because of marketing.

1TB according to any hard drive box is measured in 10^6 bytes.  Meaning 1TB = 1,000,000,000 KB.  Reality is 1TB is actually measured in 2^20 which = 1,073,741,824 KB

So if you convert 1,000,000,000 KB measured 10^6 to 2^20 bytes, you get 976,562,500 KB or 976.6GB. 

Once the drive is formatted, the free/available space will also drop due to the data structures created and reserved space.  That's why you're seeing an additional drop after format.

So blame the marketing of hard drives on the space differential.  They would rather list the drive as a 2TB (ideal) drive instead of 1.82TB (actual).  There have been several lawsuits over this kind of marketing however every last vendor continues to do it nevertheless.

« Last Edit: January 28, 2009, 08:53:20 PM by ttmcmurry »
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bigclaw

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Re: Capacity Size of Drive Under My Computer vs Webpage Different
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2009, 06:02:11 AM »
Not to mention that the DNS-323 creates several partitions on the hard drive for system use, and through Windows you are only seeing the storage partition.
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chiefnet

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Re: Capacity Size of Drive Under My Computer vs Webpage Different
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2009, 01:09:20 PM »
That's a great explanation ttmcmurry (again), that's explains why it went all the way down to 915GB since it was never really 1,000,000,000k.  And you're right, the false marketing should be fixed.

Thanks for the confirmation bigclaw, I was wondering if there was extra partitioning as well that I wasn't aware of because I could only see a small system file and that's it (besides storage partition of course).
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Buhric

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Re: Capacity Size of Drive Under My Computer vs Webpage Different
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2009, 03:14:27 PM »
ttmcmurry is totally right... but I just want to add my 2 cents.....


The way windows calculate the size of a file is the exact way... meaning
1024 Bytes = 1 KB
1024 KB = 1 MB
1024 MB = 1 GB
1024 GB = 1 TB

So a "1 TB" hard drive (10^6 Bytes) is actually 931.32 GB
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