New HDD, 500GB - 460 GB - Gb -GB - GiB?!

[Dr-Ludvig]

Yeah, so i just bought a new WD Scorpio Blue 500 GB HDD, and after putting it in, i discovered to my surprise, that the total capacity was actually 500 GB, whereas i thought it would be somewhere in the area of 460-470 GB?
In my desktop my 1TB HDD's come out as 940 B or something like that..
Now i'm very happy with the actual 500 GB, but still just wondering why?
Anyone know why?

 

[dukebound85]

Snow Leopard uses Base 10 instead of Base 2 counting like all previous OS's did

You will also find that your files will be "larger" than what they are on Leopard as a result of this difference in counting

 

[rhysmorgan]

And Western Digital have their new tech that rearranges the way the hard drive is formatted or something like that.
I saw something about it on Engadget.

EDIT: Here's the link - http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/western-digital-advanced-format-promises-slight-boost-in-usabl/
Btw, dukebound85 is correct. Well, about Snow Leopard at least...