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20 GB ipod only has a 18.5 GB capacity??

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JamSoft

JamSoft

macrumors member
Original poster
uh, I just recieved my new 20 gig ipod and it only has a capacity of 18.5 GB? What's the deal? If they advertise it as 20 and it only has 18.5 then I'm sending it back..this sucks..!!!!!! 😡 😡 😡 😡

-Nate
 
Sometimes they round 1024k down to 1000k when they do the calculations.

And the rest is eaten up because it's UNFORMATTED capacity.

After you format the thing, the file directory and invisible files also take up some space.

But you have to remember a lot of this info is on the HD manufacturers web page, and I don't know if Apple is required to pass along the info.
 
help!

😕

I’m still very confused. So does the 20 GB ipod really have a 20 gig HD or is it really a 18.5 GB HD? If it’s really a 20 GB HD, then how do I make it go from a 18.5 gig capacity to a 20 gig capacity. Am I the only one who’s complained about this? Has anyone else had this problem????

-Nate
 
And I bought an 80gb hd and its only 75gb.

GB to the hard drive manufacturers == 1000^3, GB to everyone else == 2^30 (or 1024^3)

So your iPod is 20 billion bytes. But because just about everyone else other than the hard drive manufacturers sees GB as 1024^3 it looks smaller. 18.5*1024^3 is about 20 billion bytes. So yes your hard drive is really 20 GB in "hd manufacturer" bytes, but only 18.5 in "the rest of the world" bytes
 
My powerbook came with a 30 gb but guess what it;s only 27.5 after formatting and such. in the hard drive world nothing is ever what is says it is it's always smaller so deal. Why would you send the ipod back anyway? What are you gonna do with and extra what 4-500 songs. Really when is 1500 and change not enough? Christ you could go for days without hearing the same song. **** 500 should last you a day or so. So quit your crying and suck it up.
 
It's upsetting when you spend $500 of your hard earned money on a product that isn't advertised correctly. No where does apple mention that the 20GB HD is only 18.5. It's especially frustrating when you have a CD collection as large as I do. I sat down one day (before I received my ipod) and carefully went through all of my CD's, picking and choosing which ones I wanted, and at the end calculated if they would fit. I assumed that I would have 20 gigs, so now I have to go back through my CD's and narrow my selection down some more. (not the end of the world, but it really ticks me off)

I want (1) for apple admit to the HD's true size/capacity and (2) to apologize/refund me partially for falsely advertising their product.

-Nate
 
Think of it this way. It has to keep track of where things are on the disk; otherwise, you wouldn't be able to get at them. I'm betting that they're using HFS+ so it's more efficient than it would have been with HFS. It could have only have 15 GB of space after formatting.

Some other formats are even more space-hungry.
 
Dude, calm down!😱 The 20GB ipod does, in fact, have a 20GB hard drive in it! But when apple formats it the format takes up 1.5GB for the directories and such...so stop crying about it! Everyone has to deal with it.
 
Originally posted by bousozoku
Think of it this way. It has to keep track of where things are on the disk...
Click to expand...
While that information does take up some space. It doesn't account for 1.5gb. Its the 1000^3 != 1024^3 thing that does it.
 
balliet, thank you for pointing that out.

I have very little experience/knowledge with computers and especially their hardware, so something like that means nothing to me unless someone points it out.

none-the-less, it's still frustrating..

-Nate
 
No problem. I can see how it could be frustrating. It would be nice if the hd manufacturers could just advertise in 2^30 GBs. I don't think too many people are all of a sudden going to stop buying hard drives if they are advertised as a few gb less.
 
Normally, this is where I would start flaming... 🙄

But I can tell you that what is being described is perfectly accurate. My 5GB iPod had 4.6GB free when I got it. My Cube Hard Drive had about 27GB free and not 30GB.

If that bothers you, think of it this way: If you load 8GB of music it turns out to be more like 7.2GB. 😛 😎
 
My god man, have you never bought a hard drive in your life!?! Everyone knows that you will never get the full unformatted capacity, it's the same across all platforms and devices.
Quit bitchin'! 🙄
 
Thanks for posting this thread. I have been considering purchasing a 20GB ipod, thinking it might actually hold my entire CD collection. I just finished ripping all my cds a couple of days ago at 128kb VBR, medium high, and now have

4298 songs, 16 days, 19.11 GB.

It sure would be nice if apple measured GB the same with iTunes as it did for the iPod.

I guess I will have to do the manual sync thing after all. Or else, I might just get a cheaper 10 GB iPod. Most of the reason i was considering the 20 GB was because I thought I could fit all my music on it. If I can't, then i might as well save $100.
 
Originally posted by verbose101
My god man, have you never bought a hard drive in your life!?! Everyone knows that you will never get the full unformatted capacity, it's the same across all platforms and devices.
Quit bitchin'! 🙄
Click to expand...

Well, when you buy a audio tape, or even a music CD-r, you can fit 60 minutes on a 60 minute tape. Or even video tapes. I think it would be nice if apple could have gone with that standard.

i will say that 4000 songs is a proper number. I don't doubt that you could fit 4000 good quality mp3s on the thing.
 
Originally posted by peterjhill


Well, when you buy a audio tape, or even a music CD-r, you can fit 60 minutes on a 60 minute tape. Or even video tapes. I think it would be nice if apple could have gone with that standard.

i will say that 4000 songs is a proper number. I don't doubt that you could fit 4000 good quality mp3s on the thing.
Click to expand...
And your point being??? We're not talking about tapes and CD's, we're talking about hard drives 🙄
It's nothing to do with Apple how much actual disk space is usable on a formatted HDD, it's just how thing are for the reasons that others have explained above.
 
I supposed you could have all 20 gb, but then it would be one huge file, because the formatting tells the ipod where one song starts and ends.
 
Originally posted by verbose101

And your point being??? We're not talking about tapes and CD's, we're talking about hard drives 🙄
It's nothing to do with Apple how much actual disk space is usable on a formatted HDD, it's just how thing are for the reasons that others have explained above.
Click to expand...

Are you having a bad day? We are talking about a device whose primary purpose is to store a large quantity of music. It is the next generation of portable music devices, that was first popularized by Sony with the Walkman. It is also a consumer device and not a computer geek device. (at least that is my take on it). It is also (at least originally) meant to encourage people to by Macs.

Yes, I fully understand how HD's are marketed. I am not a moron. I can also see the other side of the issue. Consumers without experience purchasing HDs will be confused when they see that their new $500 iPod tells them that there is not 20 GB of free space. You and I will understand what is happening, sure. We can see by respondants to this thread, that some people will think it is unfair.

So I believe that my comments are valid. The iPod is the next generation "blank tape" to consumers. They are facing a paradigm shift going to a media that in the past has been subject to the marketing overhype of computer and peripherial manufacturers. In the market that Maxell audio tapes and JVC video tapes were in, they were not able to fudge the numbers. Of course Apple can not say that the iPod will hold x number of hours of music.

Maybe they should post as part of the specs for the ipod that it will hold:
x hours at 128kbps
y hours at 160kbps
z hours at 192kbps

I believe that when not using VBR, that those numbers should mean the same thing. So I guess I see the computer geeks disregard for the discrepency between the unformatted and formatted capacity, since the measurement is in gigabytes, where giga means 1000.

Who knows, maybe it should be software and OS vendors that change the way they measure storage capacity units. It sure would be nice if they could agree.
 
It's upsetting when you spend $500 of your hard earned money on a product that isn't advertised correctly.

hmmm... something tells me that jamsoft wasn't exactly workin' the coton fields and counting his pennies to pay for the ipod. 🙄

lose 1.5gig? MOBY has to go...
 
Originally posted by W-_-W
Does John Doe have 18gb's of music?
Click to expand...

I do. I do not think that I have a crazy amount of CDs. I think that there are plenty of people who own over 200 cds. At least anyone who listened to music before the advent of P2P software. I have been buying CDs since 1987, what 15 years. That is what, 180 months. A bit more that one CD a month.

So yeah, I do think John Doe has more than 18GB of music, what is your point?
 
My point is, I don't know what percentage of people have 18.5 gbs of music, for one I don't. If you don't like the ipod, stop whining! Go ahead and sue for false advertising.
 
The 1.5 gb is used up also by the iPod operateing system and it has copies of itunes for os 9 and 10.
 
a friend of mine bought a pc with a "40 gb" hard drive...turned out to only have 32.2 gb available on it...he REALLY got screwed on that one....but really....1.5gb isn't that much considering the permanent software that the ipod needs on it...that would bring you down to losing 1gb at the most of space on the drive
 
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