Hard Drive space apps not showing correct size?

[hikeNM]

Hello all,

I've got a MacBook Air and use it for some light video work. As such, I need to keep an eye on my available space left on the HD.

I've downloaded several programs from the App Store, FreeSpace being the latest, and all of them seem to show less room than is truly available. Most of the time the apps show about 15 GB less than just going to my HD icon and hitting apple-I.

Is there a reason this would occur or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks a bunch in advance!

 

[gnasher729]

When your Mac says "one GB" it means one billion bytes, which is exactly what it is supposed to mean. However, some people have the bad habit to assume that 1 KB = 1,024 byte, 1 MB = 1,024 KB, 1 GB = 1,024 GB. They then display numbers that are almost 7 percent smaller than they should be.

Actually, there is a set of similar units. 1 KiB _is_ 1,024 byte, 1 MiB _is_ 1,024 KiB, and 1 GiB _is_ 1,024 MiB. And when Apple sells a computer with a 500 something drive and 4 something memory, then you get 500 GB and 4 GiB.

Take their numbers, multiply by 1.024 * 1.024 * 1.024, and see if you get the correct result.

 

[hikeNM]

When your Mac says "one GB" it means one billion bytes, which is exactly what it is supposed to mean. However, some people have the bad habit to assume that 1 KB = 1,024 byte, 1 MB = 1,024 KB, 1 GB = 1,024 GB. They then display numbers that are almost 7 percent smaller than they should be.

(Actually, there is a set of similar units. 1 KiB _is_ 1,024 byte, 1 MiB _is_ 1,024 KiB, and 1 GiB _is_ 1,024 MiB. And when Apple sells a computer with a 500 something drive and 4 something memory, then you get 500 GB and 4 GiB).

Ahhh.

Is there a program that uses the same measurements that Apple uses? Or I guess if I could find a program that shows my empty space in percentage, then my problem would be solved!

----------

Found one. Thanks all!

 

[ID_Field_Blank]

You could also just change the settings in finder so that the free space is displayed underneath your HDD icon. I believe this can be accessed in the view menu. But I'm afraid I don't completely remember, it's been a long time and I'm away from my mac ATM so I can't check.

Hope you can find it!

 

[hikeNM]

You could also just change the settings in finder so that the free space is displayed underneath your HDD icon. I believe this can be accessed in the view menu. But I'm afraid I don't completely remember, it's been a long time and I'm away from my mac ATM so I can't check.

Hope you can find it!

I'll check it. Thanks!

 

[Brian33]

You could also just change the settings in finder so that the free space is displayed underneath your HDD icon. I believe this can be accessed in the view menu. But I'm afraid I don't completely remember, it's been a long time and I'm away from my mac ATM so I can't check.

Hope you can find it!

It's Finder --> View --> Show View Options, then check Show Item Info. I guess this would only be useful if you show the disks on the desktop, like I do. (Finder-->Preferences)

Cheers,
Brian33

 

[hikeNM]

It's Finder --> View --> Show View Options, then check Show Item Info. I guess this would only be useful if you show the disks on the desktop, like I do. (Finder-->Preferences)

Cheers,
Brian33

Awesome. Thanks!

 

[CylonGlitch]

When your Mac says "one GB" it means one billion bytes, which is exactly what it is supposed to mean. However, some people have the bad habit to assume that 1 KB = 1,024 byte, 1 MB = 1,024 KB, 1 GB = 1,024 GB. They then display numbers that are almost 7 percent smaller than they should be.

Actually, since the beginning of computers, 1KB = 1024 bytes, and 1 MB = 1024 KB and 1GB = 1024 MB and 1TB = 1024 GB and 1 FB = 1024 TB.

It wasn't until computers hit main stream that the terms have changed to be powers of 10. Hard drives lead the way with this, and that was more for marketing then anything else. Why advertise a drive to be 190MB when you can advertise it as 200MB, that's 10 extra MB for FREE!

Today there is some confusion among operating systems on how they report the results.

The original computer terms makes much more sense to anyone who knows anything about computers. 1024 is 2^10 (0 to 1023), and that makes much more sense. I have never seen, anywhere technical use KiB or MiB, (not that it isn't out there, just it isn't used commonly in technology).