iPod True Capacity of new Nano?

[jersey10]

I just got the 8GB new Nano (the black one). Out of the box, before any songs are added, it displays an actual capacity of only 7.45 GB. I assume this is correct for the 8GB model, but wanted to make sure and find out why.

Let me know. Thanks.

 

[gauchogolfer]

I just got the 8GB new Nano (the black one). Out of the box, before any songs are added, it displays an actual capacity of only 7.45 GB. I assume this is correct for the 8GB model, but wanted to make sure and find out why.

Let me know. Thanks.

Yes this is perfectly normal. The 8GB on the box is calculated using 1000 bytes as a kilobyte. The computer calculates a kilobyte as 1024 bytes. When multiplied up to 8 gigs, this is where the discrepancy comes from.

 

[Chundles]

I just got the 8GB new Nano (the black one). Out of the box, before any songs are added, it displays an actual capacity of only 7.45 GB. I assume this is correct for the 8GB model, but wanted to make sure and find out why.

Let me know. Thanks.

Computers use the wrong term for storage. GB is an SI unit referring to 10^9 bytes but computers apply the same term to 2^30 bytes. They should say GiB.

You bought 8,000,000,000 bytes:

Divided by 1024 = 7812500 KiB
Divided by 1024 = 7629.4 MiB
Divided by 1024 = 7.45 GiB

So there you go - you get the full 8 billion bytes but because computers incorrectly use an SI prefix for what is a binary measure of capacity it will show an apparent loss of ~7% of the advertised HDD space although you don't actually lose any space.

Usually, for an blank 8GB HDD the computer will report a little less than 7.45GiB - this is the space lost to formatting and it is usually very little. On an iPod it's a little more because of the iPod's OS, built in software and resources.

 

[timnosenzo]

wow Chundles, great explanation!