Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPhone 4S 64gb - real capacity?

atrevers

atrevers

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 24, 2007
128
27
UK
Hi all

I'm thinking of selling my iPod Classic 80gb in order to fund the purchase of a 64gb 4S. However, this is only viable if I can fit my full iTunes music library on the phone (51gb, not bothered about video, photos etc). Can anybody tell me what the actual capacity of the phone is (e.g. 16gb iPad realistically only has something like 14gb available for user content).

Otherwise, I'll just save the cash and get the 16gb and use AudioGalaxy...

Thanks
 
Thanks all - I thought it wouldn't be the full 64gb.

Still - I find it annoying that capacity is not advertised correctly. Here in the UK there is a lot of action around ensuring that broadband suppliers are correctly advertising bandwidths, but as far as I see it this is no different, and yet it seems to go unnoticed...

Rant over!
 
If you tick the option to change songs to 128kbps in iTunes it should vastly reduce the space taken - it might even half the space needed. I'm not sure how big an impact that'd have on sound quality. You may want to try it out first on another device if you can.
 
atrevers said:
Thanks all - I thought it wouldn't be the full 64gb.

Still - I find it annoying that capacity is not advertised correctly. Here in the UK there is a lot of action around ensuring that broadband suppliers are correctly advertising bandwidths, but as far as I see it this is no different, and yet it seems to go unnoticed...

Rant over!
Click to expand...

It's not really being advertised incorrectly, it's actually a mathematical discrepancy. When you use the prefix 'kilo,' it means the number 1000. Storage capacity is measured at 1,000 bytes per kilobyte. These are decimal numbers. Software, however, uses binary numbers. Everything is 2 raised to some power. So when you look at 1 kilobyte in terms of software, it is 1,024 bytes (2^10).

As the drives get larger, this discrepancy gets bigger. For example, a 1 TB (measured in decimal) drive will actually yield around 930 GB (measured in binary).

Here's an article that shows you the math behind this: http://blog.open-e.com/formatted-capacity-confusion-clarified/
 
Yeah I was a bit gutted when i found out my 16gib 4s was actually only 13gb storage, i was hoping for between 14-15, guess i should have done my math
signature_cheekytonguesmile.jpg
 
atrevers said:
Thanks all - I thought it wouldn't be the full 64gb.

Still - I find it annoying that capacity is not advertised correctly. Here in the UK there is a lot of action around ensuring that broadband suppliers are correctly advertising bandwidths, but as far as I see it this is no different, and yet it seems to go unnoticed...

Rant over!
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with the way they advertise it. It is all explained for those who are not tech savvy. For the Tech people they KNOW that just like a hard drive, thumb drive or ANY drive, there is never the full amount.
 
Stealthipad said:
Nothing wrong with the way they advertise it. It is all explained for those who are not tech savvy. For the Tech people they KNOW that just like a hard drive, thumb drive or ANY drive, there is never the full amount.
Click to expand...

Fair points all round, but I still think it's misleading. I am tech savvy (I'm a software developer) so I understand the discrepancy between 1000 vs 1024 (although I'll admit I didn't realise that the SI definition of a gigabyte is 1000000000 bytes), it's just that if a device is advertised as 64GB, I believe it ought to have 64GB free space available to the user when it's out of the box, otherwise it should be advertised at it's actual user capacity.

A good lunchtime debate though - that is, if you're in the UK, otherwise I suppose it's breakfast time! And if you're in Europe - get back to work! ;)
 
atrevers said:
Fair points all round, but I still think it's misleading. I am tech savvy (I'm a software developer) so I understand the discrepancy between 1000 vs 1024 (although I'll admit I didn't realise that the SI definition of a gigabyte is 1000000000 bytes), it's just that if a device is advertised as 64GB, I believe it ought to have 64GB free space available to the user when it's out of the box, otherwise it should be advertised at it's actual user capacity.

A good lunchtime debate though - that is, if you're in the UK, otherwise I suppose it's breakfast time! And if you're in Europe - get back to work! ;)
Click to expand...

I would understand your argument if they advertised it to be "64gb Free" but . . . . .:)

Were do you want to meet for lunch!;)
 
dont mean to be off topic but can anyone explain why 64GB is reduced to 57.4 and the 16 GB is reduced to 12ish(dont remember the exact).

64 gb loses about 6.5
32 gb loses about 3.5 (or there abouts)

why dont they all lose the same amount of space from formatting/software?
 
atrevers said:
I'll be in the Red Lion in 10 minutes, mines a pint of best! :D
Click to expand...

I will be a few minutes late but order up the Tandoori Chicken Enchilada, I will pay!:)

(I wish I could but working)

----------
ThereGoesJB said:
dont mean to be off topic but can anyone explain why 64GB is reduced to 57.4 and the 16 GB is reduced to 12ish(dont remember the exact).

64 gb loses about 6.5
32 gb loses about 3.5 (or there abouts)

why dont they all lose the same amount of space from formatting/software?
Click to expand...

Larger drive requires more formatting. The OS would take the same space no matter what size drive.
 
ThereGoesJB said:
dont mean to be off topic but can anyone explain why 64GB is reduced to 57.4 and the 16 GB is reduced to 12ish(dont remember the exact).

64 gb loses about 6.5
32 gb loses about 3.5 (or there abouts)

why dont they all lose the same amount of space from formatting/software?
Click to expand...

Because of the 1024/1000 conversion as detailed above. The amount 'lost' by that is a percentage of total size.
 
DoubleSh0t said:
It's not really being advertised incorrectly, it's actually a mathematical discrepancy. When you use the prefix 'kilo,' it means the number 1000. Storage capacity is measured at 1,000 bytes per kilobyte. These are decimal numbers. Software, however, uses binary numbers. Everything is 2 raised to some power. So when you look at 1 kilobyte in terms of software, it is 1,024 bytes (2^10).

As the drives get larger, this discrepancy gets bigger. For example, a 1 TB (measured in decimal) drive will actually yield around 930 GB (measured in binary).

Here's an article that shows you the math behind this: http://blog.open-e.com/formatted-capacity-confusion-clarified/
Click to expand...

Genius! I never knew that before. :eek:
 
szolr said:
That's not helpful. :( It's also not right.

----------



Concise answers are always the best to this sort of question. :D Yes, that's of the right magnitude too.
Click to expand...

I guess people here don't have a since of humor. I laughed. While I knew what he meant, he asked what the real capacity of a 64GB phone is, and that is 64GB.

Technically, a 64GB device does have 64GB of storage. You just have less free space once the os is installed. The confusion, as explained above, throws a lot of people off.
 
Last edited:
i understand the orginal question and good question.

what i dont understand is people who question everything the rights and wrongs in this thread. to me i always just assume (maths aside) that i'll lose space (never really bothering to understand why so much just realised this).

2gb flash drive i have 1.86gb etc

on the iphone you also have software to run it.

common sense no?

this isnt aimed at the op its more at the ppl questioning apples quotation really.
 
EmbraceTheOne said:
51 Gigs of music?


Holy…..
Click to expand...

Mainly from spending too much time in cheap 2nd hand record shops when I was a teenager! Add to that the fact that I'm a bit of an audiophile geek, and you get a lot of high bit rate rips... and I even deleted a load of old stuff a few weeks ago to try and get the figure down a bit!!
 
atrevers said:
Mainly from spending too much time in cheap 2nd hand record shops when I was a teenager! Add to that the fact that I'm a bit of an audiophile geek, and you get a lot of high bit rate rips... and I even deleted a load of old stuff a few weeks ago to try and get the figure down a bit!!
Click to expand...

Why do you need all 51gbs on you at all times tho? That is tons of music and you could just sync what you really need at certain times.
 
t0mbola said:
It is 64,000,000,000 Bytes which translates into 59.6 GB, minus ~2 GB for OS and stuff.

Edit: Just wanted to point out that it is real 64GiB not 64GB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte)
Click to expand...


How do you know this for sure? In my opinion there is 2GB missing and the free capacity should be 59GB THEN deduct the OS.

----------
ThereGoesJB said:
dont mean to be off topic but can anyone explain why 64GB is reduced to 57.4 and the 16 GB is reduced to 12ish(dont remember the exact).

64 gb loses about 6.5
32 gb loses about 3.5 (or there abouts)

why dont they all lose the same amount of space from formatting/software?
Click to expand...

Its because 64GB is not supposed to lose 6.5GB after being formatted. Apple did something to the 64GB iphone that made it lose and extra 2GB and no one has been able to explain what happened to it (and it is not due to the OS)

And before anyone wants to argue with me about it, why is the 64GB ipod and ipad BOTH formatted to give you 59GB of free space but the iphone only 57GB? 64GB flash formatted should give you roughly 59GB of free space and it does in just about everything except the iphone
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back