new hard drive storage ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eddie G
  • Start date Start date
E

Eddie G

I just installed a new 300gb drive and it has nothing on it. I click on the
properties window and it says "free space 2999,989,655,552 bytes, 279gb".

So why is the "bytes" 20gb larger than the "gb" number? Where did those
20mb go?

Thanks!!

Eddie G
 
Marketing?

Don't you mean math? How did you become an MVP anyways?

Stealing lines from a website:

"It is a matter of billions of bytes versus gigabytes. Most HD
manufacturers rate their drive capacity using billions of bytes. So,
your drive has 300,000,000,000 bytes (300 billion bytes). A gigabyte,
however, equals 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes or 1,073,741,824 bytes. So,
doing the math 300,000,000,000 / 1,073,741,824 = 279.3968 gigabytes."

Hope that helps...

-Randy
King of Microsoft
 
Why turn snarky? Clearly, using a number derived in one fashion simply
because it provides the buyer with a better-looking description, as opposed
to describing it in the more customary binary-hybrid fashion, is clearly a
marketing move. Where have you been? Besides, Cari's reference gives
essentially the same quote you provided....

Hth,

Joe
 
I just installed a new 300gb drive and it has nothing on it. I click on the
properties window and it says "free space 2999,989,655,552 bytes, 279gb".

So why is the "bytes" 20gb larger than the "gb" number? Where did those
20mb go?

Thanks!!
Click to expand...

Into the vagrancies of how space is measured.

The problem is that a gb isn't a billion bytes, but rather
1024*1024*1024 bytes.
 
That's like saying the square root of pie is a marketing scheme.

When we all know that the square root of pie is a really long and
continuous number. Because MATHEMATICLY it works out that way.

The reason people get offended on these chat boards is that some of us
are really microsoft certified and most are not. When Cari who is not
MS-MVP or MS certified becomes certified let us know... -Microsoft
 
PI is continuous non-repeating number. Don't know why you bothered to
throw "square root" into the mix. GB means Gigabyte or 1024*1024*1024
bytes. The marketing folk used 1000*1000*1000 as their unit of measure
so as to be able to put a larger number in front of the GB. If you look
at more recent packaging you will even find a "disclaimer" pointing it out.
 
I don't need a piece of paper to prove I can build PCs... apparently you
think you do.

But I am and have been an MS-MVP for some 5 years now.
 
Ok Cari,

I will start slowly for you, because you don't seem to get it...

No one in a marketing department sat down and conspired against you.
You did this to yourself.

If you have been an MVP for 5 years as you claim. Tell me this... Why
do older hard drives acurately claim their disk size and newer ones
have the problem described?

It's math not marketing, don't get excited...

-Randy
 
Randella said:
Ok Cari,

I will start slowly for you, because you don't seem to get it...

No one in a marketing department sat down and conspired against you.
You did this to yourself.

If you have been an MVP for 5 years as you claim. Tell me this...
Why do older hard drives acurately claim their disk size and newer
ones have the problem described?

It's math not marketing, don't get excited...
Click to expand...

If it wasn't for a "marketing" decision the math wouldn't be needed. Here's
the original question:

"So why is the "bytes" 20gb larger than the "gb" number? Where did those
20mb go?"

The path to the answer includes as you point out some simple math. The root
of the answer is that some "marketing" person decided that they would
redefine GB to mean a million bytes. Once one company started "marketing"
their drives this way the rest jumped on board. If it wasn't for "marketing"
the confusion would never have existed and the math wouldn't be needed.
 
Again with the conspiracy theory...

Look Kerry or Cari or whatever your name is...

It has to do with the phyiscal size of the disks vs. the smaller track
size of new disks. If you were a Microsoft MVP you would know that.
Also if you do the math your statements don't add up either.

Riddle me this MVP... If it is all a "marketing conspiracy," as you are
claiming, why are all manufacturers on board? Don't you think if one
was able to break the mold and offer a real 200/400/600GB drive, that
word would spread and they would become the most sought after drives?

The answer is no because it's not a marketing problem. It's a physical
limitation, like your mental capacity. You just can't recalulate
things and make it "ok".

-Randy
 
Again with the conspiracy theory...

Look Kerry or Cari or whatever your name is...

It has to do with the phyiscal size of the disks vs. the smaller track
size of new disks. If you were a Microsoft MVP you would know that.
Also if you do the math your statements don't add up either.

Riddle me this MVP... If it is all a "marketing conspiracy," as you are
claiming, why are all manufacturers on board? Don't you think if one
was able to break the mold and offer a real 200/400/600GB drive, that
word would spread and they would become the most sought after drives?

The answer is no because it's not a marketing problem. It's a physical
limitation, like your mental capacity. You just can't recalulate
things and make it "ok".
Click to expand...

Actually it is a marketing problem. It's the morons in marketing
interpreting GB to be 1,000,000,000 bytes.

It's nothing new, though. They did the same thing with MB and
1,000,000 bytes.

In a sense this could be justified except the OS has always counted it
as 2^30 and 2^20 bytes.
 
Again with the marketing thing...

If it's a marketing problem then why do you lose GB in the formatting
of the drive?

If it is a marketing problem then why can't an engineer fix it?

Maybe it's deeper then your conspiracy theory. Maybe (gasp!) it is a
real size problem.

Just meditate on that.

-Randy
 
Again with the marketing thing...

If it's a marketing problem then why do you lose GB in the formatting
of the drive?

If it is a marketing problem then why can't an engineer fix it?

Maybe it's deeper then your conspiracy theory. Maybe (gasp!) it is a
real size problem.

Just meditate on that.
Click to expand...

It's a matter of language. There's no offical standard, how do you
prove which one is right?

Do we use the normal metric approach where k = 1000, M = 1,000,000 and
G = 1,000,000,000??

Or do we use the computer engineer's approach where k = 1024 and so
on?
 
Loren said:
It's a matter of language. There's no offical standard, how do you
prove which one is right?

Do we use the normal metric approach where k = 1000, M = 1,000,000 and
G = 1,000,000,000??

Or do we use the computer engineer's approach where k = 1024 and so
on?
Click to expand...

Uh, as a long-time (i.e., aged) computer engineer, I recall that the
K=1024 notion was the de facto standard *only* for RAM; and that, because
RAM was nearly always offered in binary sizes. For other computer
hardware items, including HDs, tapes, communications widgets, and CPUs,
the K=1000 notion was -- and is -- far more common.

And, there are standards (SI and IEEE, probably others) supporting the
K=1000 notion, but no standards supporting the K=1024 notion. So, the
HD vendors can't IMHO be found wrong by rational people when using
decimal notions of size prefixes (k/M/G/T/P/E/Z/Y) -- particularly when
they explicitly note on their ads and labels that they do so.

That said, I appreciate M$'s use of both methods to show the properties
of a HD (in Explorer, right-click on any HD then click on Properties),
to at least alleviate confusion; it is probably too late to eliminate the
confusion by switching universally to decimal size prefixes.
 
Why can't the companies (and people, as well) learn to use the binary
prefixes....kiB, MiB, GiB etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix


--
Tumppi
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Helsinki, FINLAND
(translations from/to FI not always accurate
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