Drive capacity reporting

[roland.g]

In 10.6 (maybe 10.5 too) Apple changed the way the OS reported drive capacity. A 750GB drive reported as such, where the used space and unused space would add up to the total capacity and not the formatted capacity, which was always less.

Did Lion change back how it reports? Or is there a setting for choosing. My new iMac with 256 SSD and 1TB HDD arrived, and out of the box it reports 240 or so GB capacity on the SSD and less than 1TB on a completely bare HDD.

Am I missing something?

 

[matbook101]

In 10.6 (maybe 10.5 too) Apple changed the way the OS reported drive capacity. A 750GB drive reported as such, where the used space and unused space would add up to the total capacity and not the formatted capacity, which was always less.

Did Lion change back how it reports? Or is there a setting for choosing. My new iMac with 256 SSD and 1TB HDD arrived, and out of the box it reports 240 or so GB capacity on the SSD and less than 1TB on a completely bare HDD.

Am I missing something?

Yeah. The OS and iLife take up space.

 

[roland.g]

I don't think you understand. Please read the entire post. I know that the OS and apps take space. Even the bare drive is under reporting like it would back in Tiger, etc. In Get Info it lists drive capacity, used, and unused. Capacity is total drive, as in 1TB, 500GB, etc. Prior to 10.6 or 10.5, it was always reported in base 2 (I think) whereas drives are advertised in base 10. So 1MB = 1024KB, etc. Which is why a drive never held 500GB. Reporting was changed to reflect the base 10 size, as in 500GB instead of less than that.

Here read this.
http://macdailynews.com/2009/08/28/...rts_drive_capacity_in_mac_os_x_106_snow_leop/

 

[paulsalter]

As far as I can see from mine it is still base 10, I havent seen an option for changing this (but would like one)

on your drive with get info, what does it show as used space (bytes & GB)

This is my used space

188,542,500,864 bytes
188.54 GB on disk

 

[roland.g]

As far as I can see from mine it is still base 10, I havent seen an option for changing this (but would like one)

on your drive with get info, what does it show as free space (bytes & GB)

My machine is at home. Will have to look later. I just noticed it was different when I booted up my new Lion iMac. Even the bare 1TB secondary drive was nine hundred something GB and nothing was on it. And I'm talking capacity, not free space. Even a bare 1TB drive in 10.6 didn't have a full 1TB free space because of formatting but would report the capacity in base 10. I added an article link to my first reply.

 

[paulsalter]

The only reason I mentioned free is that get info shows this figure in bytes & GB, so can easily see from this if its base 2 or 10

 

[roland.g]

The only reason I mentioned free is that get info shows this figure in bytes & GB, so can easily see from this if its base 2 or 10

I'll have to look at that later tonight. Thanks.

 

[toxic]

Lion still uses base 10, I'm not aware of any way to change it.

 

[roland.g]

Well my HDD reports 999.86 GB for a 1TB so that is right but my SSD reports 250.4GB for a 256GB. And this is capacity not available or free.

 

[Mal]

Well my HDD reports 999.86 GB for a 1TB so that is right but my SSD reports 250.4GB for a 256GB. And this is capacity not available or free.

That's because that's the actual capacities of those drives (in base 10). No drive is going to be exactly 1TB or 256GB typically, but the differences you're seeing are far less than would be attributed to the base 2 measurement. Also, in the case of the SSD, I believe the drives typically reserve a small portion that even the OS can't see or access. Not 100% sure about the reason, but that's what I've understood.

jW