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

chama98

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 13, 2014
351
193
London
I was looking at my Mac mini spec wise in the system report and I discovered this! a 500GB SSD instead of the 512GB advertised and bought. Anyone else had this?

I know it's probably nothing. But I feel robbed of 12GB! lol.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot 2024-11-12 at 13.00.48.jpg
    Screenshot 2024-11-12 at 13.00.48.jpg
    132.9 KB · Views: 126
  • Screenshot 2024-11-12 at 13.03.28.jpg
    Screenshot 2024-11-12 at 13.03.28.jpg
    126.5 KB · Views: 117
  • Screenshot 2024-11-12 at 13.02.33.jpg
    Screenshot 2024-11-12 at 13.02.33.jpg
    191.2 KB · Views: 123
My Bad, Apologies.

Removed earlier wording as it was apparently erroneous and/or misleading. Much better if only accurate info is posted on Forum. I've therefore added a link below to what should be a better expalanation.


Hopefully better now.
 
Last edited:
It’s quite confusing. I spoke to Apple earlier and they said it was also part of the os which, and I quote, ‘makes the Mac work’.
I'm guessing you spoke to a young shop assistant at a computer store that sells apple stuff. You might as well have consulted a burger flopper. Most apple shop employees don't know anything about macs, these days.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Timpetus and Ifti
No Apple support direct.
So, a chatbot?
I'm just kidding, but it is difficult to find good support these days.
Best thing is to perfect your online searching skills, and for mac; avoid the all but dysfunctional 'Apple discussion forums'.

"…part of the mac OS…" 😂
 
  • Like
Reactions: madrag
Ok. But I don’t quite understand. My old Mac Studio showed the full 512GB.

I know it’s 12GB but I feel slightly short changed.
Don't waste your time. If you return your Mac, you will get another one that says exactly the same thing. You might at least take a moment to verify the views of others on this thread who are pointing out (quite correctly), that the discrepancy you see is due to decimal vs. binary reporting.

Do a little homework; it'll make sense and you'll save yourself a pointless trip to the Apple Store.
 
Humans use base 10 for counting:
10^1 = 10
10^2 = 100
10^3 = 1000

Computers use base 2, as in binary:
2^1 = 2
2^2 = 4
2^3 = 8
.
.
2^10 = 1024

Human version of 1000 is equivalent to a computer's 1024, thus 1000/1024 = 0.9765625 conversion rate.

512 GB x 0.9765625 = 500 GB to humans

Hope that helps.
 
Humans use base 10 for counting:
10^1 = 10
10^2 = 100
10^3 = 1000

Computers use base 2, as in binary:
2^1 = 2
2^2 = 4
2^3 = 8
.
.
2^10 = 1024

Human version of 1000 is equivalent to a computer's 1024, thus 1000/1024 = 0.9765625 conversion rate.

512 GB x 0.9765625 = 500 GB to humans

Hope that helps.
Best explanation in this thread 👆🏼. Thanks @NeonNights 🙏🏽. I love maths. 😊
 
GB = Digital Storage
GiB = Binary Storage

As a rough approximation to find GiB multiply GB by 1.07374 (Different figure required at TB level)

Apple disk report gives 494.38 GB (decimal) (530.8 GiB). Apple also advertise the device as having a SSD of 512 GB (decimal) (549.7 GiB). Note 512 GiB = 476.8 GB. I suspect that they are mixing up the suffixes (as nearly all IT organisations do) leaving customers confused. Perhaps we should all approach Apple (and the other miscreants) and ask for the additional memory or if at least they could use correct figures and suffixes.

Happy to be told I'm wrong.
I think you have your GiB and GB mixed up.

B = 1 (10^0, 2^0)
K = 1000 (10^3)
Ki = 1024 (2^10)
M = 1000*1000 (10^6)
Mi = 1024*1024 (2^20)
G = 1000*1000*1000 (10^9)
Gi = 1024*1024*1024 (2^30)
T = 1000*1000*1000*1000 (10^12)
Ti = 1024*1024*1024*1024 (2^40)

494.38 GB is the partition size (460.43 GiB).
The entire disk is 500.28 GB (465.92 GiB).
The reason you don't see 512 GB (476.84 GiB) or 512 GiB (549.76 GB) is probably because of SSD overprovisioning? For an SSD, the likely size is 512 GiB (a power of 2) like RAM would use. Is some of the size of the SSD taken by ECC? I suppose you need to look at the SSD chip specs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: casperes1996
The SI unit for 1024 bytes is 1 kiB, but usually when people write kB/KB/kb, they mean 1024 bytes.

Certainly whenever I talk about capacities, I'm always using base 2, because computer science. Only lay people and weirdos use base 10 when talking about bits/bytes (manufacturers prefer base 10 because it allows them to inflate the capacity of their drives).

If a drive says it is "512 GB", I take that to mean I will see a reported disk size of 549.755 GB.

If it says "500 GB", I will expect to see 536.86 GB.

If I see 476.xx GB size, then that means the drive is really "480 GB".

The disk manager shows 524.3 GB, which is close enough for me to 512 GB to not launch a class action lawsuit. 🤣

Over-provisioning to allow for wear/failure of cells of the SSD are usually hidden from the working capacity and never seen. They are usually handled internally by the SSD management controller, so not sure why the capacity is different to that expected.

I'm too busy typing and didn't notice the disk manager actually shows a LARGER capacity than 512 GB.

container disk2 = 524.3 GB.

You are getting exactly what you paid for. The PARTITION isn't quite 500 GB, but that is because there is a trailing 5 GB partition for system stuff.

The file system itself consumes disk space, so you will lose a bit for that, and then there is the base 2 vs. base 10 thing, but that doesn't count here as I can guarantee the reported stats in the computer will all be base 2.
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.