Hard drive capacity question

That's how any hard drive you buy is going to be. And it varies by brand. I also have a 320GB and it really has 299GB

It's a math thing. It has to do with the fact that 1000 does not equal 1024. Point is, everything is normal with your 320GB HD showing as about 297.77.

If you need a full explanation or a need to confirm the fact that everything is normal, click the MRoogle link in my signature and search the topic because it's been discussed several times. -GDF

Wikipedia gives a good explanation.

Since the early 2000s most consumer hard drive capacities are grouped in certain size classes measured in gigabytes. The exact capacity of a given drive is usually some number above or below the class designation. Although most manufacturers of hard disk drives and flash-memory disk devices define 1 gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, the computer operating systems used by most users usually calculate size in gigabytes by dividing the total capacity in bytes (whether it is disk capacity, file size, or system RAM) by 1,073,741,824. This distinction is a cause of confusion, as a hard disk with a manufacturer-rated capacity of 400 gigabytes may be reported by the operating system as only 372 GB large, depending on the type of report.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte#Gigabytes_vs._gigabits

basically, to dumb it down even more: Your drive is 320,000,000,000 bytes, which in fact equals about 297gb, but for simplicity purposes they say it equals 320gb.

Hard to believe how many threads we have on exactly the same question. Does no one bother to search first? It seems like there's a new version of the same question every other day.

old-wiz said:

Does no one bother to search first?

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Frankly, I always have a moment when I feel like a sucker or a chump when I search first -- "Here I am, taking my own time to find my own answer, when I could just clog the board with a new thread..."

Then I take a deep breath, say a mani, and I feel better -- about 1.024 times better, in fact.

320 * 1000^3 / 1024^3

Yeah, my 250GB is really around 232GB....

reebzor said:

basically, to dumb it down even more: Your drive is 320,000,000,000 bytes, which in fact equals about 297gb, but for simplicity purposes they say it equals 320gb.

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I'm not convinced it's for 'simplicity purposes' as much as 'advertising purposes.'

It's sorta like buying a dozen eggs and only getting eleven - less inventory costs on the part of the farmer means they spend less to get the same money from you. They could simply advertise it as eleven eggs (which would generate less revenue) or include that twelfth egg (which would increase the manufacturing costs) - but why bother, when they can simply claim it's a dozen, and then include a disclaimer in Wiki that the "dozen" number is an approximation.

It's a bit of a shame that we all just accept this, but it's been going on for so long now that it's pretty well ingrained in the business. At this point, if anyone started calculating drive size based on actual bits, I think people would be more confused, not less!

I was always under the impression that hard drives are (close) to the capacity they claim but by the time you get your OS and everything installed on there they show lower capacity (obviously)

I'm probably wrong tho..

shady825 said:

I was always under the impression that hard drives are (close) to the capacity they claim but by the time you get your OS and everything installed on there they show lower capacity (obviously)

I'm probably wrong tho..

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Yeah, you're wrong I doubt OS X takes about 40GB on my 500GB HDD while it takes 20GB on his 320GB HDD

Patriks7 said:

Yeah, you're wrong I doubt OS X takes about 40GB on my 500GB HDD while it takes 20GB on his 320GB HDD

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Yea I never gave to much thought to it. I just thought that the 'missing space' was due to OS being installed.
But like I said I was probably wrong!
Learn something new everyday!

raremage said:

I'm not convinced it's for 'simplicity purposes' as much as 'advertising purposes.'

It's sorta like buying a dozen eggs and only getting eleven - less inventory costs on the part of the farmer means they spend less to get the same money from you.

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Nope. It's like buying a dozen eggs and getting a dozen, but the box gives the contents in octal (14) while you count in decimal (12).

plinden said:

Nope. It's like buying a dozen eggs and getting a dozen, but the box gives the contents in octal (14) while you count in decimal (12).

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Well, technically true I just thought that would make the analogy even more confusing.

Although I'd argue that it gives the contents as 12 (octal) when it is really 10 (decimal), since most people think a dozen is twelve.