why are USB flash drive "GB" so small?

  • Thread starter Thread starter George Orwell
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George Orwell

I got a USB flash drive of 8 GB, and it has just a pinch
over 8 x 10^9 bytes. I know magnetic disk GB are so,
but since the flash is solid state, I would expect that
it goes in powers of 2: 1024^3.
So where is the missing 7% of storage?


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I got a USB flash drive of 8 GB, and it has just a pinch
over 8 x 10^9 bytes. I know magnetic disk GB are so,
but since the flash is solid state, I would expect that
it goes in powers of 2: 1024^3.
So where is the missing 7% of storage?
Click to expand...

Storage capacities are quoted in base 10, not base 2, as per the
current SI standards.

Old farts (me included) expect base 2 numbers but the standard changed
over 10 years ago...

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
 
George said:
I got a USB flash drive of 8 GB, and it has just a pinch
over 8 x 10^9 bytes. I know magnetic disk GB are so,
but since the flash is solid state, I would expect that
it goes in powers of 2: 1024^3.
Click to expand...

Nope, flash ram isnt organised that way.
So where is the missing 7% of storage?
Click to expand...

There is no missing 7%
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage George Orwell said:
I got a USB flash drive of 8 GB, and it has just a pinch
over 8 x 10^9 bytes. I know magnetic disk GB are so,
but since the flash is solid state, I would expect that
it goes in powers of 2: 1024^3.
So where is the missing 7% of storage?
Click to expand...

Repeat after me: Storage sizes use SI prefixes.

It has allways been that way. There is absolutely no
storage missing from your device.

Incidentlially this is not only legal, but usually
required by law.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix

Arno
 
Storage capacities are quoted in base 10, not base 2, as per the
current SI standards.
Click to expand...

I have never learnt about this until I wrongly answered a question
in a test. :)

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I got a USB flash drive of 8 GB, and it has just a pinch
over 8 x 10^9 bytes. I know magnetic disk GB are so,
but since the flash is solid state, I would expect that
it goes in powers of 2: 1024^3.
So where is the missing 7% of storage?
Click to expand...


Mostly dedicated to things like manufacturing redundancy, spare
sectors and wear leveling. Almost all external storage* has always
been rated in the "proper" decimal amounts, the flash drive folks took
advantage of that.

*CDs (but not DVDs or other optical media) and some floppy formats
(the infamous “1.44MB floppy,” for example) are exceptions.
 
Mostly dedicated to things like manufacturing redundancy, spare sectors and wear leveling.
Click to expand...

Nope, its just the difference between binary and decimal GBs.
Almost all external storage* has always been rated in the "proper"
decimal amounts, the flash drive folks took advantage of that.
Click to expand...

There is no point in binary with a hard drive or flash drives.
*CDs (but not DVDs or other optical media) and some floppy formats
(the infamous “1.44MB floppy,” for example) are exceptions.
Click to expand...

The 1.44MB floppy is in fact a weird binary decimal hybrid.
 
Nope, its just the difference between binary and decimal GBs.


There is no point in binary with a hard drive or flash drives.
Click to expand...


Flash drives are made up of flash chips, which are almost universally
made in power-of-two sizes.
 
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