Disk Utility not allowing full partition of free space?

[Oppressed]

Hopefully this is a simple answer but is there a reason why my Disk Utility only shows 19.94 GB available for partitioning when I have 30 GB free on my 120 GB hard drive?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Regardless of what you're partitioning your drive for... if that 120GB drive has Mac OS X installed on it, it is unwise to let free space drop below 10% of the drive's size. Actually, this is true for ANY operating system - Mac OS X just enforces it better

 

[MacManiac76]

Most likely the discrepancy is due to the free space being fragmented. There actually is 30 GB total of free space, but only 19.94 GB of that space is contiguous, therefore that is the maximum size the partition can be.

 

[Oppressed]

Most likely the discrepancy is due to the free space being fragmented. There actually is 30 GB total of free space, but only 19.94 GB of that space is contiguous, therefore that is the maximum size the partition can be.

I apologize, because I forgot to mention that the hard drive is a solid state drive on my Macbook Air.