500 GB Storage, not all there at DVinfo.net

John Hampster · April 19th, 2005, 09:20 AM

I just purchased a LaCie Big Disk 500 GB external harddrive and when I set it all up and connected it to my CPU it only contained 467GB worth of storage. Can anybody tell me why this is??

Hugh DiMauro · April 19th, 2005, 10:00 AM

All computer hard drives do this. All of mine have done this. I believe the motherboard sets aside a certain amount of hard disk space for page file usage and other little thingies like some sort of formatting area that cannot be used. I may be wrong on the terminology but I know that your hard drive will, more than likey, never show the full amount of space. It's okay. Computers are designed that way.

Brandon Greenlee · April 19th, 2005, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh DiMauro

All computer hard drives do this. All of mine have done this. I believe the motherboard sets aside a certain amount of hard disk space for page file usage and other little thingies like some sort of formatting area that cannot be used. I may be wrong on the terminology but I know that your hard drive will, more than likey, never show the full amount of space. It's okay. Computers are designed that way.

You also have take into account that manufacturers market these things by saying that since it has 500,000,000,000 bytes that it is 500 gigabytes when in actuallity 500,000,000,000 is divided by 1024 to get kb, 1024 again to get mb, 1024 again to get gb. This equals 465 gigabytes almost exactly what you are reporting.

Computers don't jump up to the next nomeclature until every 1024 units of the one preceding it - not a straight 1000 like you would suppose.

It really just comes down to marketing versus the way your computer actualy views it.

Hugh DiMauro · April 19th, 2005, 11:21 AM

Fabulous! Thank you for that answer!

Emre Safak · April 19th, 2005, 12:10 PM

IBM started this odious marketing practice a decade ago.

Glenn Chan · April 19th, 2005, 06:51 PM

Generally I would write off 10% of the drive's capacity. As Brandon pointed out, your OS and hard drive manufacturers use different numbering systems. After formatting you lose around 7%. You can't actually use all of the drive's capacity without running into fragmentation issues (which will cause speed issues).

John Hampster · April 20th, 2005, 07:10 AM

Great, thanks for the answers peoples. Damn that false advertising!

April 19th, 2005, 09:20 AM	#1
John Hampster New Boot Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: TO, On Posts: 18	500 GB Storage, not all there I just purchased a LaCie Big Disk 500 GB external harddrive and when I set it all up and connected it to my CPU it only contained 467GB worth of storage. Can anybody tell me why this is?? __________________ Cathode Rays Daze

April 19th, 2005, 10:00 AM	#2
Hugh DiMauro Trustee Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Central Florida Posts: 1,205	Don't Worry All computer hard drives do this. All of mine have done this. I believe the motherboard sets aside a certain amount of hard disk space for page file usage and other little thingies like some sort of formatting area that cannot be used. I may be wrong on the terminology but I know that your hard drive will, more than likey, never show the full amount of space. It's okay. Computers are designed that way. __________________ Interesting, if true. And interesting anyway.

April 19th, 2005, 11:21 AM	#4
Hugh DiMauro Trustee Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Central Florida Posts: 1,205	Fabulous! Thank you for that answer! __________________ Interesting, if true. And interesting anyway.

April 20th, 2005, 07:10 AM	#7
John Hampster New Boot Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: TO, On Posts: 18	Great, thanks for the answers peoples. Damn that false advertising! __________________ Cathode Rays Daze

April 19th, 2005, 12:10 PM	#5
Emre Safak Trustee Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brookline, MA Posts: 1,447	IBM started this odious marketing practice a decade ago.

April 19th, 2005, 06:51 PM	#6
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Generally I would write off 10% of the drive's capacity. As Brandon pointed out, your OS and hard drive manufacturers use different numbering systems. After formatting you lose around 7%. You can't actually use all of the drive's capacity without running into fragmentation issues (which will cause speed issues).