Originally posted by MacStripey:so I bought myself a new harddrive with 1 TBthanks to all those U2 audio and video bootlegs totally loading my other 3 harddrives to the limit.... anyway, got the new HD formatted and all, it works fine.
But why does the system tell me there is 937 GB of free disc space available, when it's supposed to be 1.000 GB ? where are the mighty 63 GB that I would also like to use?
Gets on my wick when people say there are 1000 bytes in a Kb and so forth. To suit you, the consumer, the manufacturer of your hard-drive has given you pretty much what you wanted. How many bytes in a terabyte? A trillion. Why? Because someone who is not into their technology thinks that:
1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte
1000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte
1000 megabytes = 1 gigabyte
1000 gigabytes = 1 terabyte
So, 1000 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 = 1 trillion bytes.
So, your 937 GB is in actuality a consumer TB since you have 1,006,096,089,088 bytes (which is pretty close to 1 trillion bytes, which is what you'd expect to be in your terabyte)
However, Windows sees the 1,006,096,089,088 bytes and says that this is actually 937 GB because Windows, like every other computer system in the world, uses binary code to process data. It therefore divides the 1,006,096,089,088 bytes by 1024. So 1,006,096,089,088 divided by 1024^3 = 937 GB.
If you want a full terabyte (which you do want judging by your post) then you already have one. In fact, you have more than a full terabyte. On the other hand, if you want a real life percieved terabyte (1000GB) then you are of course, 63GB short. Because the general public see 1000 bytes in a KB etc, they really start to mess with the capacity of hard drives that extend up to terabyte territory.
If you bought a 1kb hard drive, with 1000 bytes on, you're only missing 24 bytes from the real 1024 bytes in a kb. Hardly noticable. But when your new 1 TB hard drive doesn't have your expected 1000GB on, you're not happy.
A terabyte should in fact hold 1024GB of data, which is 1,099,511,627,776 bytes of data. Doesn't seem too much different from what you have.
Your TB has: 1,006,096,089,088 bytes of data (your trillion bytes)
A TB should have: 1,099,511,627,776 bytes
Difference: 93415538688 bytes (or 87GB)
So in reality, you should be saying, I've bought a terabyte hard drive. It has 937 GB of data on, which is what I wanted (1 trillion bytes). However, I want my extra 63GB to make up 1000 GB and my newly defined TB. However what you want MacStripey is an extra 87GB, not an extra 63GB.
Apologies for the slight rant, but it does annoy me. Hope I have actually informed you somewhat?
Originally posted by KieranU2:[..]
I got 931 GB when I got mineI want the rest!
What make is yours if you don't mind me asking?
Yes, Kieran, you are actually owed a bit more since you have neither a trillion bytes, 1000 GB or a full TB.
