Size changes

[Wizard]

Don't you hate how some hard drive and DVD-R manufacturers use 1000 for everything instead of 1024?

 

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, the standard size of a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte and 1024 megabytes make up a gigabyte. Manufacturers like to use 1000 for all of those values. The difference? You actually getting shortchanged 24 kilobytes, which might not seem like a lot, but once it adds up, you could be short several gigs.

 

Example: if you have a "100" gigabyte hard drive, that's 1000^3 actual kilobytes you have. When divided by the real size you have 1000^3/1024^3, which ends up to be 93 gigabytes. You lose 7 gigabytes just because they use a smaller denomination. That way, they can charge you more while providing you less storage space.

 

Thoughtful replies are welcome.

[awesomegamer]

It's because they know that most people don't know the difference between the metric system and the pseudo-metric system used by computers.

[Master]

I always make sure that I'm getting the right amount of space...and of course companies will do that, it's any way to make an extra buck

[awesomegamer]

Hey, just today at walmart, I saw a USB harddrive redefine Gigabyte to be 1,000,000,000 bytes. In parenthesis they stated a computer gigabyte is 2^30 bytes.

[Wizard]

0

Hey, just today at walmart, I saw a USB harddrive redefine Gigabyte to be 1,000,000,000 bytes. In parenthesis they stated a computer gigabyte is 2^30 bytes.

Oh yah?! My flash drive is 8,000,000,000 bits!

[teh silly]

This may help explain.

 

Kilobyte

[jjpriest25]

I think it's a good marketing idea by the developers of those storage devices. Hardly anyone realizes that they're being cheated out of all that memory. I couldn't figure out why I only had 82 of my hundred gb hard drive until last year. Part of it was because of a retarded backup system, but the rest was really never there at all! I think I have seen some that are actually the right number though...not sure though.