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iPhone 3Gs with only 6.67Gb storage space?

S

ssyb100

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 15, 2011
2
0
Hey,
First off- Thanks everyone for reading!
Ok so I have in my possession an iPhone that looks, acts and runs like a real deal iPhone 3Gs but it only has 6.67Gb's of storage. When I go in to settings/ About and read the overall storage the phone has it says just that- 6.67Gb.
I have restored it twice an still only 6.67G. And this is the truth its not a visual glitch. I have tried to put more than 6.67Gb worth of stuff on it and it wont accept it..
Thoughts?

Background info- it's second hand and to my knowledge never been jailbroken.. :S
 
If it's the 8GB model then the actual useable capacity is less. My iPhone 4 is 16GB but it says the capacity is 14GB. Various things like formatting, whether you count in binary or base 10 etc can impact what capacity the device says it has.
 
ssyb100 said:
Hey,
First off- Thanks everyone for reading!
Ok so I have in my possession an iPhone that looks, acts and runs like a real deal iPhone 3Gs but it only has 6.67Gb's of storage. When I go in to settings/ About and read the overall storage the phone has it says just that- 6.67Gb.
I have restored it twice an still only 6.67G. And this is the truth its not a visual glitch. I have tried to put more than 6.67Gb worth of stuff on it and it wont accept it..
Thoughts?

Background info- it's second hand and to my knowledge never been jailbroken.. :S
Click to expand...

It's called "formatting."
 
I did not think that there was a 8Gb iPhone 3Gs?
And whats this formatting thing?
 
ssyb100 said:
I did not think that there was a 8Gb iPhone 3Gs?
And whats this formatting thing?
Click to expand...

When the iPhone 4 was released, Apple discontinued the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 4 and produced an 8GB iPhone 3Gs as the "low end" iPhone.

Formatted capacity is always less. It just is. Take a look at hard drive in your computer. If your spec sheet said "250GB HDD", you're most likely looking at 230-something GB of actual storage.

In addition to this, the operating system itself takes up a bunch of space so you can't really expect an 8GB iPhone to have 8GB of actual free space.
 
awadeee said:
When the iPhone 4 was released, Apple discontinued the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 4 and produced an 8GB iPhone 3Gs as the "low end" iPhone.

Formatted capacity is always less. It just is. Take a look at hard drive in your computer. If your spec sheet said "250GB HDD", you're most likely looking at 230-something GB of actual storage.

In addition to this, the operating system itself takes up a bunch of space so you can't really expect an 8GB iPhone to have 8GB of actual free space.
Click to expand...

Using a SL computer is a bad example. Apple switched over to base 10 (?) counting. So drive size is reported as the same as what the manufacturer claims.
 
awadeee said:
Regardless, it's still less.
Click to expand...

I'm amazed people are still confused by this. Regardless of how the drive space is calculated, there is still part of the capacity that is taken up by formatting the drive. The amount of space will vary by size of the drive and the system using it, but ~10-15% is normal.
 
Can't you look on the back of the phone to see how much capacity it is supposed to have? (Pointed towards "I didn't know that Apple made an 8gb iPhone 3GS)
 
Interstella5555 said:
I'm amazed people are still confused by this. Regardless of how the drive space is calculated, there is still part of the capacity that is taken up by formatting the drive. The amount of space will vary by size of the drive and the system using it, but ~10-15% is normal.
Click to expand...

I actually have noticed the capacity fluctuates with each new firmware (or it seems to).
 
If you want to feel better about your iPhone plug it into a Windows computer and look at the capactity in Explorer.
Then you'll see more than you think you have.
My 16GB iPhone comes in at over 18GB and my 64GB iPod comes in at over 68GB.
:p

Like the others have said formatting is accounting for some of the discrepancy but the iOS is also taking up a big chunk.
And iOS5 may make things even worse.
The betas for iOS5 use 1/2GB more that iOS4 although some of that may get reduced down once it fully comes out of beta.
 
awadeee said:
When the iPhone 4 was released, Apple discontinued the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 4 and produced an 8GB iPhone 3Gs as the "low end" iPhone.
Click to expand...

HUH? when did apple discontinue the iphone 4? i think you mean iphone 3gs 16 and 32
 
Interstella5555 said:
I'm amazed people are still confused by this. Regardless of how the drive space is calculated, there is still part of the capacity that is taken up by formatting the drive. The amount of space will vary by size of the drive and the system using it, but ~10-15% is normal.
Click to expand...

Would you mind linking to some info on that? I can't find anything which suggest that formatting will consume anywhere near ~10-15%.

For my MBP's 500GB HDD, Finder (modified to show GiB/base 10) shows a capacity of 465.44GB. That in accordance with the GB to GiB conversion 500/(1.024^3). So, where's the ~10-15% overhead?
 
Last edited:
Interstella5555 said:
I'm amazed people are still confused by this. Regardless of how the drive space is calculated, there is still part of the capacity that is taken up by formatting the drive. The amount of space will vary by size of the drive and the system using it, but ~10-15% is normal.
Click to expand...

That's what I'm saying.
 
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