Hello i just brought got my new imac payed gor 2 gb ram payed for the better graphics card got that to. Then i payed for the 500 gb Hd and got a 465.44gb Hard Drive a hitachi one? was i saposed to get this ? Im new to mac ? pleasse help and is it saposed to have a Pionner dvd-rw Please help me? have i gotten what i payed for?
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Got my new Imac with payed for a 500 gb Hd and got a 465.44gb
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that sounds about right
a 500GB disc when formated will give you that number.
All HDD's are the same 80GB is around 76GB 160 is arounf 152GB ect
Also for detailed view at what you got - goto Apple (top left icon) then about this Mac ,there are links on there for Hardware and your software versions plus serial and build number
a 500GB disc when formated will give you that number.
All HDD's are the same 80GB is around 76GB 160 is arounf 152GB ect
Also for detailed view at what you got - goto Apple (top left icon) then about this Mac ,there are links on there for Hardware and your software versions plus serial and build number
kingkezz said:
That's going to come off the original space, it won't have any influence on the 500 -> 465GB change (that's due to differences between advertised space and how the computer sees it, as explained above the difference is usually ~7%) what it will do is knock about 20GB off that 465GB for all the iLife stuff, printer drivers, extra languages etc.
So you buy an iMac with an advertised 500GB which in computing terms is actually 465GB then you lose ~20GB to OSX and the bundled software. That's just the way it goes.
I doubt HDD manufacturers are going to start selling 465GB HDDs or 930GB etc. The round number works wonders and is easily classified in the fine print.
On a similar note, my brother purchased a compact Dell laptop with a 40GB harddrive. I got it and was installing some stuff for him and setting up his wireless, I noticed that that harddrive was a 30GB. I was like "WTF?" I know aout the 1024 conversion and expected a smaller number than 40... but not that small.
Turns out, Dell creates and hides a small partition on the harddrive for some sort of backup/restoration/idiotville nonsense.
Be thankful that doesn't happen on macs.
Turns out, Dell creates and hides a small partition on the harddrive for some sort of backup/restoration/idiotville nonsense.
Be thankful that doesn't happen on macs.
cr2sh said:
Whenever I buy a Dell (or any preconfig'd PC), I wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall. Imagine my surprise when I find out that I wiped out the restore partition and the system didn't have a backup CD. Now you specifically have to request backup CD's. Otherwise, you are wasting valuable hard disk space.
And to the original poster, this topic has been covered umpteen million times already. When a hard drive is sold, 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. When a hard drive is used, 1GB = 2^30 bytes. 500,000,000,000 bytes divided by 1024 gives KB (488,281,250KB) divided by 1024 gives MB (476,837MB) divided by 1024 gives GB (465.66GB). A simple search on either the forums or Google would have been easier.
NZEditer said:
If you really want someone to blame....blame marketting. I've always hated how they advertise harddrive sizes like this.
I don't suppose this question will ever go away, will it?
It's just going to get worse as HDs sizes get bigger.
It's just going to get worse as HDs sizes get bigger.
topgunn said:
Probably the BEST PC attribute I can think of. I have bought several PC's and won't buy one without that hidden drive. It's becoming more and more ubiquitous, and that's a good thing. So when you tire of making new users to fix the inevitable bloating/slowing/crashing of XP, just boot and hold F9 (or whatever) and have a factory machine in about a half hour. Of course, loading all the updates and SW is a pain...
paleck said:
It is exactly opposet of selling something for $9.99. One cent is not a whole lot cheaper, but it looks way better on paper. Similarly, 465.44GB does not scream "AMAZING COMPUTER DEAL OF FREAKING AWESOMENESS BUY BUY BUY NOW!!!!!!one!!!!eleven" in the same way 500gb does. That is, if computer ads screamed. Which I imagine some of them do.
Felldownthewell said:
Precisely. When I was getting my mbp 80GB HDD sounds so much better than 74GB. Dropping by one tens place is a big deal in advertising, thus the 9.99 trick
Marketing has nothing to do with it. In fact, the marketers are the ones who are right (for once).
Back then, one "computer kilobyte" (1024 bytes) was close enough to one real kilobyte (1000 bytes), so programmers started using SI prefixes.
The problem is, the bigger the number, the larger this compounded rounding error gets. That's why you "lose" about 35GB when you go from the manufacturer size (500 GB) to the software size (465 GiB). My two "250GB" drives show up as 232 GiB drives for OS X.
That may not be obvious to people in the U.S.A. since you're not using the decimal system, but one kilo has always been 1000, not 1024. Blame the programmers for using the SI prefixes but not using the SI multipliers that goes with them.
There is new prefixes to try and fix this problem, but it's hard to get people to use them. How would people react if Microsoft and Apple started using the "kibi/gibi/etc" prefixes in their next operating systems? It would stop the "1024 vs 1000" questions but would confuse a lot of users, so in the end it'd probably make an even bigger confusion.
Back then, one "computer kilobyte" (1024 bytes) was close enough to one real kilobyte (1000 bytes), so programmers started using SI prefixes.
The problem is, the bigger the number, the larger this compounded rounding error gets. That's why you "lose" about 35GB when you go from the manufacturer size (500 GB) to the software size (465 GiB). My two "250GB" drives show up as 232 GiB drives for OS X.
That may not be obvious to people in the U.S.A. since you're not using the decimal system, but one kilo has always been 1000, not 1024. Blame the programmers for using the SI prefixes but not using the SI multipliers that goes with them.
There is new prefixes to try and fix this problem, but it's hard to get people to use them. How would people react if Microsoft and Apple started using the "kibi/gibi/etc" prefixes in their next operating systems? It would stop the "1024 vs 1000" questions but would confuse a lot of users, so in the end it'd probably make an even bigger confusion.
NZEditer said:So what your saying is thats normal i payed for a 500 gb hard drive and got a 465.44 gb Hd ? Is there any one else with a so called 500 gb imac with 465.44 gb hd ? Or should i go to Mac and say WTF ?
Have you not read the thread?
I'm going to spell this out for you as simply as I can because it's obvious you haven't understood.
Product manufacturers use SI units to advertise HDD space. There is always a little disclaimer, and it is present on the Apple website and in the manual that the HDD manufacturer uses SI units, it will say something akin to "1GB = 1000 million bytes." That means that 500GB = 500 x 10^9 bytes or 500,000,000,000 bytes.
A computer, as a binary system works in powers of 2, not 10, so a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, a megabyte is 1024 kilobytes etc.
So, you paid for 500,000,000,000 bytes:
500,000,000,000 bytes divided by 1024 = 488281250 kilobytes
488281250 kilobytes divided by 1024 = 476837.158203125 megabytes
476837.158203125 megabytes divided by 1024 = 465.66128730774 gigabytes
So, 500GB in SI units = 465.66GB in computer terms. You have exactly what you paid for. The 0.22GB difference between 465.66GB and your 465.44GB is formatting on the HDD.
I don't know how to make it any clearer for you, Yvan256 and Veldek also explain it perfectly.
You paid for a 500GB hard drive and got a 500GB hard drive, there is just a difference between what manufacturers and computers see as a gigabyte.
To put it in laymans terms- The drive has a 500GB capacity before formatting.
The unformatted drive is 500GB.
Formatting is then based on the mathematic equations aboved to work out what room there is.
Taking this matter to Apple will just result in someone telling you that "the disk you paid for is 500GB and the disk in your machine is 500GB but because it has been formatted and is ready for use the capacity is less. You'll find this with any and every formatted drive. (And no, you can't use unformatted drives- at least not to my knowledge).
When you look on of the apple tech specs pages for their products you'll see "Actual Formatted Capacity Less".
When you buy a drive, you can expect *roughly* 91.25% of it to be for use after being formatted. Also bear in mind that your OS and applications will take up some room too.
Apple did put a 500GB drive in there... Boot up Disk utility and you'll probably see that- The downside is that it had to be formatted before you could use it and formatting takes up space.
The unformatted drive is 500GB.
Formatting is then based on the mathematic equations aboved to work out what room there is.
Taking this matter to Apple will just result in someone telling you that "the disk you paid for is 500GB and the disk in your machine is 500GB but because it has been formatted and is ready for use the capacity is less. You'll find this with any and every formatted drive. (And no, you can't use unformatted drives- at least not to my knowledge).
When you look on of the apple tech specs pages for their products you'll see "Actual Formatted Capacity Less".
When you buy a drive, you can expect *roughly* 91.25% of it to be for use after being formatted. Also bear in mind that your OS and applications will take up some room too.
Apple did put a 500GB drive in there... Boot up Disk utility and you'll probably see that- The downside is that it had to be formatted before you could use it and formatting takes up space.
ikonq said:
It's not formatting that provides much of the space difference, as I stated above, the decrease in space from formatting a 500GB is just 0.22GB. The main culprit in the space gap is the mathematical difference between what a computer defines as a gigabyte and what the manufacturers define as a gigabyte.
Formatting will not take up 70GB on a 1TB drive, the difference is mathematical and the main reason behind the push to use new terminology for computer hard drives. Technically, 1024 bytes is not a kilobyte as the prefix "kilo" denotes 1000, not 1024. Thus the move to the KiB notation, along with MiB and GiB.
NZEditer said:So what your saying is thats normal i payed for a 500 gb hard drive and got a 465.44 gb Hd ? Is there any one else with a so called 500 gb imac with 465.44 gb hd ? Or should i go to Mac and say WTF ?
Sure, take it make to an Apple Store and make sure you get to talk to the manager. Maybe drop Steve Jobs a b**chin' e-mail: jobs@apple.com
Alternatively read the thread a few more times until you get all the nuances.
You could also look on the bright side: you just got yourself 4,000,000,000,000 bits. Now this will really confuse you!
1 byte = 8 bits
Well My 250 GB drive in my iMac does have over 250GB of space, and here is how I prove it,
open disk uility select the drive now look at the info at the bottom unformated the drives says 233.8 formated is 233.4, now how many bytes is it really
here you go 233.4 GB = 250,656,219,136 BYTES that is 656 MB more than 250 BG, so the size report does not mean you are losing any thing.
open disk uility select the drive now look at the info at the bottom unformated the drives says 233.8 formated is 233.4, now how many bytes is it really
here you go 233.4 GB = 250,656,219,136 BYTES that is 656 MB more than 250 BG, so the size report does not mean you are losing any thing.
NZEditer said:So what your saying is thats normal i payed for a 500 gb hard drive and got a 465.44 gb Hd ? Is there any one else with a so called 500 gb imac with 465.44 gb hd ? Or should i go to Mac and say WTF ?
troll