Computer makers sued over hard-drive size claims

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by Vlade
Good, I doubt they will win but maybe it will convince the HD makers to use 1024 instead of 1000, or not screw us out of a few gigs for "formatting"

Screwing us how? Instead of selling you an "80gig" HDD they'll sell you a "75gig" HDD (or whatever the actual size is). The HDD space won't get bigger, the numbers on the label will get smaller. And why did you put "formatting" in quotes? Formating the drive does take up space and it's not a fixed amount (so it's not like they can give pre and post format sizes). AFAIK it is dependent on what OS and file system you use.


Lethal

 

[Powerbook G5]

Either way, being "shorted" by like .3 of a gig is not something I am going to complain about when it is formatted and all. For the past 4 years I have been stuck with my 6 gig HD on my PowerBook G3 and I have managed, so I seriously doubt I'll have concern over not having enough space on my 80 gig HD on my new PowerBook.

 

[rainman::|:|]

Originally posted by TEG
...or place an astrisk next to the size number and state somewhere that its an estmated size...

They, or at least Apple, already to state this, and it's not hard to find in product details. Apple has covered their ass for years on this, this lawsuit is bogus (at least with Apple as a defendant). But, if there are other computer companies that do NOT tell consumers (which i doubt), they should be made to pay out class-action style.

pnw

 

[Vlade]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
Screwing us how? Instead of selling you an "80gig" HDD they'll sell you a "75gig" HDD (or whatever the actual size is). The HDD space won't get bigger, the numbers on the label will get smaller. And why did you put "formatting" in quotes? Formating the drive does take up space and it's not a fixed amount (so it's not like they can give pre and post format sizes). AFAIK it is dependent on what OS and file system you use.


Lethal

Then sell me a 75 GB drive instead of a 80 GB drive. I said "formatting" because their "formatting" takes up over a GB of space...

But anyways, your right, we wont get bigger hard drive, the label will just get smaller

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by Vlade
Then sell me a 75 GB drive instead of a 80 GB drive. I said "formatting" because their "formatting" takes up over a GB of space...

But anyways, your right, we wont get bigger hard drive, the label will just get smaller

I'm still confused, who's formating is "their formating"? Like I said before, how much room formating takes up is dependent on what OS and file system you choose. Now that I think about about it the number of partitions you make might also make a difference in formating size.


Lethal

 

[msmithriv]

I just want Honest Advertising

When I purchase a hard drive, I have been accustomed to losing five to 10 gigabytes of usable space. But, I just purchased a Verbatim 750GB hard drive, which translated into 698GB of usable space. The utility application on the hard drive was only 82MB, therefore, the formatted hard drive consumed 52GB of usable space. I am tired about hearing all of the different calculations of KB, MB or GB, I just want the computer hardware companies to advertise upfront that if I purchase 750GB (let me know what I am actually going to get, let me know that the hard drive uses x amount of space).

Everyone forgets that new computer users are born every day. Calling newbies idiots does not make it easier to learn all of the ins and outs of the computer world. A lot of computer phobias come from those computer geeks who consider everyone else illiterate for asking questions or making mistakes. Not all computer users are programmers and do not care about how many megabytes per gigabytes or new or old gigabytes. Maybe resorting to lawsuits is a bit much but I can understand the frustration. I think that may of these people really don't care about the missing space, but the fact that a 750GB Hard drive should be advertised as a 750GB Hard Drive (Formatted Size 698GB). It lets the customer know what they will be actually get. In that way, if they need more usable space, they could purchase a larger drive that provies the usable space they need. By the way, the 52GB discrepancy is happening for all formatted operating systems.

 

[Lunja]

What a thread bump!

I think the same should be stated by computer manufacturers. I've bought computers with 80gb hd's thinking that I'd have 80gb of free space, but the size of the operating system is never mentioned. So you open the box your brand new computer, plug it in, and it you realise that the OS takes up 8gb. It just doesn't seem to be as transparent as it should be.

 

[blitzkrieg79]

it's imossible to state a true set hd size, they all vary independently so it would be pretty hard to market that
instead of everyone suing everyone else for the stupidist things we should all try and inform ourselves a little better.

Then how come HD/computer manufacturers instead of understating hard drive storage numbers on the box they overstate them, for example if a HD has real world capacity (and by real world I mean the actual USABLE size) of 148GBs they could put on the box 140GB. I know, I know, it's all part of marketing, bigger is better crap. This is 21st century we live in, I am more than sure they can come up with some rating system of showing real world capacity (HD/computer manufacturers should know better and take into account all the reasons that cause the HD space appear to be lower than the actual platter size). To me 10GBs out of a 150GB hard drive is a big deal.

 

[Raid]

What a thread bump!

Agreed, but msmithriv has a point and the issue is still quite valid today. For instance a 1TB drive contains 1 Trillion bytes which is just over 931GB, 69GB less than the 1000GB a user might be expecting. 69 GB is huge considering it's over triple the space I have currently on my Tibook!

As hard drive sizes increase, calculations using 1000bytes instead of the proper 1024byte allocation means this discrepancy will only get bigger. Unfortuantely I think the marketing powers are winning this war... unless the engineers can come up with room for 99,511,627,776 bytes for a true 1TB drive.

 

[gnasher729]

Everyone forgets that new computer users are born every day. Calling newbies idiots does not make it easier to learn all of the ins and outs of the computer world. A lot of computer phobias come from those computer geeks who consider everyone else illiterate for asking questions or making mistakes. Not all computer users are programmers and do not care about how many megabytes per gigabytes or new or old gigabytes. Maybe resorting to lawsuits is a bit much but I can understand the frustration. I think that may of these people really don't care about the missing space, but the fact that a 750GB Hard drive should be advertised as a 750GB Hard Drive (Formatted Size 698GB). It lets the customer know what they will be actually get. In that way, if they need more usable space, they could purchase a larger drive that provies the usable space they need. By the way, the 52GB discrepancy is happening for all formatted operating systems.

Actually, you _are_ getting 750GB. The problem is that there are two different measurements, one is 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes, and the other is 1GiB = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes. The 750GB hard drive that you buy _does_ have 750GB. However, there is a lot of software out there that will display this incorrectly as 698GB (correct would be either 750GB or 698GiB). Blame the software (you can blame Apple as well, because they make the same mistake in their software).

It has nothing to do with formatting of the hard drive. It has to do with the way the numbers are displayed. By the way, this happens only with displays of storage capacity. For example, Firewire runs at 400 or 800 MBit per second. That M has _always_ stood for one million when specifying bandwidth (bits or bytes per second), so Firewire can handle 400 or 800 million bit, or 50 or 100 million byte, per second.

It is also important that all drives are sold in the same way. All 750GB drives have the same capacity, so you can compare prices correctly. The whole situation may be confusing, but nobody is ripping you off.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Waaaahhh!

I just bought 6400 US fluid ounces of gas for my car and I only got 41 Imperial gallons!!
I thought I was getting 50 US gallons! I have been ripped off by 9 gallons!!

I don't care that it's the same amount of gas, I wannit measured the way I want!

--- FFS.