10 replies to this topic

[moe]

Hi all

I have a question about a 750 GB HDD I just bought.

After installing it I got into BIOS and checked if the HDD is recognized properly. Everything seamed fine. So, I created a partition. As usual some MB got lost for system information. Then I started up WindowsXP and wanted to format the HDD with NTFS. At this point I saw that I can only format up to 698 GB.

Is this normal? Does WindowsXP have some limitation about the size your partition can have? I don't think it needs about 50 BG to store some information about the partition. And I don't like the idea of loosing about 50 GB. Do I have to create two partitions in order to use the entire HDD?

Any input is welcome and if someone knows about a good forum to ask hardware related questions please let me know. Thx.

[moe]

Never mind, I think I just found the answer.

HDD manufacturer count a kilo as 1000 while normal coding folks counts a kilo as 1024.

Apparently there is a name convention to make it more specific.
One Kibi-Byte (1 KiB) has 1024 Bytes,
One Mebi-Byte (1 MiB) has 1024 KiB,
One Gibi-Byte (1 GiB) has 1024 MiB and so on.

It's the way of HDD manufacturer to make their product appear bigger than it really is...

In BIOS you see the result displayed from the HDD specs. It does not actually count the Bytes. But if I turn the 1000 into 1024 I get the expected result.

Thx anyway.

[Blaxill]

The manufacturers did not just make it up.

In SI units (international system of units) k stands for 10^3, M is 10^6 etc. This is the same for all units (e.g. 1km = 1000m). However, when discussing things that come in powers of two or binary it is convenient to abbreviate it as well, but the SI units do not fit perfectly, so a very common convention is to take k as 2^10, M as 2^20 etc. These values are just above their SI equivalents. The only difference about the two notations is that a lower case 'k' can only be used in the binary version as a lower case 'k' stands for kelvin in SI units.

As there is no difference between the two it is impossible to tell which is being used without knowing the context. Produces/manufacturers use the SI / decimal version as it gives a higher 'visible' factor, which leads the consumer to believe they are getting more than they might actually be getting. Although you could count this as a trick by the manufacturers they are actually only telling the truth.

Edit: Also, the term kibibyte is defined as 2^10 bytes, kilobyte can mean either 2^10 or 10^3 bytes (it is interchangeable)

[moe]

Thx for being more specific. It's about what I meant, only I didn't say it so nicely :D

Since a HDD is for a computer and a computer works in binary I really expected to actually get 750 GB. So, I was rather disapointed to "only" see 698 GB. It took me a while to realize that they are using a decimal system. So it's not a cheat but I would say many, if not most, users would expect to see a partitionsize of 750 GB after starting the Operatingsystem. Especially if you see 750 GB in the BIOS.

Anyway, it's all sorted out now. Thx again for the detailed explanaiton.

[Nick]

moe said:

I really expected to actually get 750 GB.

And you did.

Quote

So, I was rather disapointed to "only" see 698 GB.

It's 698 GiB. Windows and several other operating systems are just plain wrong to use GB. A textfile of 1 kB has exactly 1000 characters in it, not 1024.

And just to make things clear, a 1 Gb/s network connection has a peak transfer rate of 1000 Mb/s. And when you buy a 'gig' of RAM you actually get 1 GiB or 1024 MiB. I'm seeing stores slowly start to use the right notations... :happy:

[moe]

Pardon the typo... my bad.

Obviously I meant GiB in my previous post. I expected to see 750 GiB, but I only got 698 GiB.

Before I looked into this matter, I was not aware that the notation GiB even existed. Still not quite used to it. As I was saying, somehow in my head it's like: Computer -> binary (Not decimal). Hence, the confusion.

I agree it's a bad habit/practice to use the same notation for different meanings. But I think it will take a while until the average user also starts saying/writing GiB instead of GB when it would be appropriate.

But thanks for the info. Interesting to know, when you see in a store:
750 GB HDD
they mean
698 GiB HDD
but if they write
1 GB RAM
they mean
1 GiB RAM

[Goz]

TBH its a joke. Whatever the arguments people give about a K on a computer being 1000 is rubbish. It has been 1024 as long as computers have been about. The hard disk manufacturers are aware of this and they do it to take advantage of the users. It is deliberate misrepresentation and they know it. Unfortunately people, such as the apologists above, give them the opportunity to get away with this.

[moe]

Goz:
You must have misunderstood something. I was apologizing for the typo, since on a forum like here precision is somewhat important. I never said nor meant to imply that I agree to the way the hard disk manufacturers handle it. But I don't think there is much we could do about it. I doubt a rant about this will help. I just wanted to know what is going on, hence I started this post.

[Goz]

Actually i was more aiming that Nick ;)

[Nick]

Goz said:

TBH its a joke. Whatever the arguments people give about a K on a computer being 1000 is rubbish. It has been 1024 as long as computers have been about. The hard disk manufacturers are aware of this and they do it to take advantage of the users. It is deliberate misrepresentation and they know it. Unfortunately people, such as the apologists above, give them the opportunity to get away with this.

You're joking, right? :huh:

[.oisyn]

Goz said:

TBH its a joke. Whatever the arguments people give about a K on a computer being 1000 is rubbish. It has been 1024 as long as computers have been about.

I'm sorry but that's just plain nonsense. Read this. There were in fact computers that used decimal addressing and could address like 4000 (4k) bytes of memory. Binary addressing became common in the sixties, but it wasn't until begin seventies that everyone used K to mean 1024 instead of 1000. However, the M was still used for 1,000,000, which was primarily used for persistent storage like harddisks.

Quote

The hard disk manufacturers are aware of this and they do it to take advantage of the users. It is deliberate misrepresentation and they know it.

No, it's just tradition. Btw, the new SI notation (kibibytes or KiB) was only proposed in 1999, and accepted in 2000.