Isn’t it annoying when you buy a new 160 GB hard drive and when you get it all formatted and ready it’ll only hold 152 GB? Well, a couple of guys are not going to take it lying down, and they’ve sued the major HD vendors (PC Makers) to prevent them from overstating their products’ capacities. This issue is similar to that of the “viewable area” of CRT monitors, where manufacturers were eventually forced to admit that a 17″ monitor actually has a 15.2″ viewable area.
They’re actually suing Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba which only use the HD components.
In any Apple literature they always quote that the formatted size will vary. Do any of the other companies do this?
I do not think this is an issue with the hardware vendors but the HD manufacturers.
It is also something I have grown used to although it is definitely a marketing rip off.
This is so old. The HD manufacturers have been doing it that way for DECADES, and it always worked fine before. Everyone knows thats how it works, whats the problem here?
The scam here is people suing for all these ridiculous reasons. 80 gigs, when empty. Format and you have a little less room. It’s like when you order a 20 ounce beverage at a restaurant. The container may well hold 20 fluid ounces, but when you “format” it with some ice, you get less. I have to say, those restaurants that totally fill the cup with ice, leaving you with a few sips of actual beverage…now THATS annoying.
I remember when I bought an Apple quadra 605 and it had a 40 mb hard drive. Since Apple was advertising it as a 40 mb hard drive that is what they formatted it at, but they switched vendors and put in a 45 mb hard drive and formatted it at 40. Also a few years back Dell sold a bunch of computers to my school that had 20 gb harddrives formatted at 10 gb because that was what the school requested and 10 gb hard drives were not available.
But they’re indeed 160GB hard disks. They should sue the company whoever’s OS they’re using (most probably Microsoft) for their filesystem overhead instead…
So we should all use raw partitions?
For clarity they are they not using a decimal notion in a binary system – they are cheating. In my book 1 MB is 1024 KB not 1000 KB, right?
a) 1 Kb = 1024 bytes
or
b) 1 Kb = 1000 bytes
What about the File System??
Duh.
For clarity they are they not using a decimal notion in a binary system – they are cheating. In my book 1 MB is 1024 KB not 1000 KB, right?
You’re absolutely right. What the author is talking about has nothing to do with which filesystem you format the drive with. What the article is referring to is the fact that hard drive manufacturers use the decimal system rather than the the binary system to measure the capacity of a hard drive. Therefore, a “160GB” drive should come out to 160,000,000,000 / ( 1024 ^ 3 ) GB.
This difference wasn’t a big deal when hard drive capacities were small, but now that they’re growing to huge numbers of gigabytes, the difference is increasing exponentially.
While “Giga” does mean 10^9 in the decimal metric system, computers do not use the metric system – they use the binary system. Therefore, it is inaccurate to use the decimal metric system to measure the capacity of storage devices.
The fact is, a KB is 1024 bytes to the rest of the computing world. HD manufacturers deliberately started using round numbers to mislead consumers.
“Everyone knows that’s how it works, whets the problem here?”
That is simply incorrect. Most people who buy computers have no idea why they seem to have less space in Windows than it says on the box. In fact most people I help with their computers (and there are more of them than there are of us), are pretty upset, and feel like they got ripped off, which they did. Also, if everyone was worshipping the Pharaohs of Egypt as gods, and have been doing so for hundreds of years, does that make it right, in the name of the status quo?
This law suit has been a long time coming.
Suing the computer makers seems like a good idea. They are the ones that are most directly selling and marketing the hardware to unknowledgeable consumers. Most of the hard drive manufacturers’ marketing is directed at the computer makers, in a business to business kind of way. The consumers aren’t directly affected by that kind of marketing. If computer manufacturers want to sue the hard drive companies, that would be a different story.
So I really have to ask, why are so many people these days so anti-activism, be it political, consumer or other? Do you have a problem with the American way?
WE CAN FOLLOW THIS SUIT UP WITH…..
suing the RAM manufacturers, ESPECIALLY ECC RAM manufacturers for giving us 528MB of Ram instead of 512MB as advertised.
Recently my girlfriend bought a e machines laptop that came with 512mb–it said so on the box. Then to my dismay, I looked at Control Panel in WinXP home, and it read 448MB?
Where did the RAM go? to the built in Video Card. So technically they should be advertising 448mb of RAM. I think I have a case here!! I’m ready to sue!
The problem is not with the formating. It’s just that to make figures look bigger the hard drive manufacturers defines 1 GB as been 1000 x 1000 x 1000 bytes when in reality it’s of course 1024 x 1024 x 1024, which for big capacities, can make quite a difference…
You can still compare hard drives since they all do that.
I am not sure if this suit is “valid” since all hard drive manufacturers clearly states on their websites something like “We define a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes”. However it would be nice if all the HD manufacturers would agree to tell the real capacity of their drives so that you don’t have to calculate each time the real capacity you’re getting…
taken from the SI brochure:
(http://www.bipm.fr/pdf/si-brochure.pdf)
“These SI prefixes refer strictly to powers of 10. They should not be used to indicate powers of 2 (for example, one kilobit represents 1000 bits and not 1024 bits )”
there, its an international standard:
1KB = 1000 Bytes
1KiB = 1024 Bytes
1K has always been and always will be 1000.
this is getting old.
I understand your dismay of shared video card with RAM howerver it remain the box DID SHIP with the RAM. How that RAM is used is the issue and perhaps should be stated clearly or researched on your part.
You can probably change the value of you shared RAM if you really need too increase system RAM.
Unlike products whose capacities have to be powers of 2 (for example, various kinds of RAM, flash memory), hard drives can have pretty much any size the manufacturer wants. If the capacity of a drive is “initially decimal”, why measure it in binary gigabytes? Why should a drive company be liable for CS hijacking the meaning of “gigabyte”? Many computer products, including network cards, modems, and probably CPUs, have speeds given in decimal units.
The cup with ice analogy is a good illustration. If thats the case then companies like McDonalds are committing fraud and false advertising everytime you get a drink.
There is no point in this lawsuit. These guys are idiots.
Do any of you guys remember back in the old days (50s thru the early 70s) when Detroit used to state the horsepower ratings of their big V8s? They didn’t have any kind of a measurement standard back then; they simply put the engine on a stand, took off all the power-robbing accessories like alternators and power steering pumps, and measured the horse power at the crank shaft. It was common practice, but it in no way represented real world power output. Since then, they’ve been compelled to adhere to a standard set up by the SAE whereby they measure the output at the drive wheels, with the engine in the car! But everyone knew those numbers were bogus, which is why Car & Driver and Road & Track were so important. They cleared up the muck for average buyers.
As far as I know, hard drive manufacturers have been stating for years that the capacities of their hard drives are expressed as unformatted. I’m not sure, but maybe all they need to do is put it in bigger type. But it sure as hell doesn’t warrent a law suit. That’s just laughable.
When I buy a box of Kleenex, it doesn’t say
100 Tissues**
**100 = 92
> 1K has always been and always will be 1000.
Indeed, that’s the International Standard but in Computer Science because of the binary nature of computers what we can call “round numbers” are in fact the powers of two.
2^1 = 2
2^2 = 4
…
2^10 = 1024
So the standard in Computer Science is that 1KB is 1024 bytes, 1MB is 1024 KB, 1GB is 1024 MB etc.
If you have a 1024 bytes files it will be reported by any Operating System as a 1KB file. That’s why their is a difference between the capacity given by hard drive manufacturers and the capacity you will get. And that is also the reason why they tell on their why site that they deffine 1GB as been 1,000,000,000 bytes… because it’s not the standard for computers.
here’s one for Western Digital.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_f…
scroll to the middle below the jumper diagram.
It states “(1) Western Digital defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes”
There is no “standard computer gigabyte”. Different components use binary or decimal units. If the difference between decimal and binary matters to you, just check which one is used.
“When I buy a box of Kleenex, it doesn’t say
100 Tissues**
**100 = 92”
No, but that is a moronic comparison…
If I read on a box that there is a 17″ monitor inside I expect to find a 17″ monitor in it, regardless of who knows what.
There is only one definition of a kilobyte in the world and it is 1024 bytes. There is only one definition of megabyte and it is 1024 kilobytes. There is only one definition of a gigabyte and it is 1024 megabytes. It’s a shame that all HDDs manufacturers seem to be unaware of that simple fact. Maybe this lawsuit will finally open their eyes.
When they’re done with this, maybe they can do something about those damn mail-in rebates.
Guys, here’s food for thought. It just occured to me that the problem is not at all the way a Megabyte is measured. It has to do with the file system installed on the drive when it’s formatted. I don’t have all the stats at my fingertips, but I seem to recall that FAT32, NTFS, HFS and EXT2 wil give you completely different formatted capacities.
Not only that, but the formatted capacity of a hard drive, when expressed in binary bytes, is not the same as the manufacturers’ stated capacity in decimal bytes. Do the math.
It seems that we have not one problem, but two!
if marketing is off approx 2%, 5%, 7%, for 1KB, 1MB or 1GB labelling when capacities have been doubling every 18mths or so. Are most people even using these large capacity gains ?
As an ex designer for a HDD vendor, I was dismayed that HDDs prices were more commoditised than many simple PC components. HDDs are dirt cheap for what they deliver !!!
Consumers are dammed lucky PC related technology has improved so much for so long and with ever falling prices.
Brian N
> FAT32, NTFS, HFS and EXT2 wil give you completely different formatted capacities
because they are different designs with different overheads and efficiencies. I don’t see a problem there.
I realize that harddrive manufacturers started this trend (kilobyte = 1000 bytes) to inflate their numbers, but in the long run it is the only sensible way to have things. We no longer measure memory size in deca-words and harddrives are no longer refered to as “magnetotronic platter-box”. Kilobyte meaning 1024 bytes is an arcane leftover imposed by memory limits in the old days…
How many 5 meg mp3:s can you fit in a binary 0.7 gigabyte? It doesn’t even make sense.
Besides, as many others have mentioned, hard drive manufacturers always indicate what kind of measuring method they use anyway…
“No, but that is a moronic comparison… ”
what’s moronic is your reply
Exactly! It is such a minor deal, why won’t HDDs manufacturers be honest about it to begin with?
When I first laid my fingers on a Computer my Dad told me, that, that the prefix k was for 1000 and the prefix K was for 1024. So:
1 kg = 1000 g
while
1 KB = 1024 Byte.
This was all in the pre-MB-era…
The difference got blured with MB coming up and no more difference being made.
While the difference between k and K was a mere 2,4% the difference increases:
kilo 1.024
Mega 1,048576
Giga 1,073741824
Tera 1,099511628
So with a Gig you are screwed by 7% and when all of us are going to switch to TB in our PCs(just wait…), the differenccee is pretty close to 10% which I consider noteworthy.
The trouble is, that data is measured in powers of 1024 and data containers are measured in powers of 1000.
They really have a reason to be upset. It is just not going to change..
Just my two eurocents.
That is actually ok. If I bought a computer that was sharing RAM with the Graphics chip, I could buy another chip and reclaim that RAM.
However, I noticed, with annoyance, that the 80GB hard-drive I bought, reported as 76GB, but someone elses 120Gb reported 117. It seems mine, the smaller one, had a larger discrepancy. Isn’t this suposed to be the other way around, that the larger the drive, the larger the discrepency should become. I think HD makers should come clean on this one. There should be more consistency.
This has nothing to do with formatting but decimal vs. binary. It is deceptive, but I find this entirely frivolous. For one, it is going after the big OEMs rather than the HD manufacturers who began the problem and who feed the specs to the OEMs in the first place. Secondly, there is a strong trend to decimalize bytes and this is usually noted in fine print. And thirdly what about the many other areas this occurs in: battery life (of all kinds), Wi-Fi transmission rates, monitor sizes, etc…
… using MHz as an indicator for processor speed…
I bought a 30gig hdd (maxtor) recently and when I booted up windows 2000 it read it as a 29.xxx hard drive, think it read something like 340 mb’s after the 29 gigs. Anyways, after formating it turned lower I think it went to 27.XXX gigs with the ntfs filesystem. That was in my brother’s comp, on my own I have a two 40gig hdds (a maxtor and western digital) Both didn’t read as 40 gigs or 40000mb etc it read as 39 or 37 after formating it was about 37.XXX or something. Well don’t really care who ever really fills up their hdd and if they do then as backup I got to sort of laugh, got two 40gig’s hdd after my old 30 gig went kaput. Anyways, once again it not that bad if you consider the fact that a friend of mine got a 15gig hdd from someone and discovered a working 1998 2 gig hdd
That’s an interesting point.
Should developers and technicians be using a different scale than consumers? Or, should consumers be forced to learn that 1 KB = 1024 Bytes, etc.?
This isn’t a lie or a cheat. Just because your OS needs some of it doesn’t mean much. If they knew how they could use all of the space.
This has nothing to do with formatting or the OS taking space. This has to do with the difference between a decimal and a binary basis for bytes being used.
In advertising and marketing, they are using a decimal base, but once you boot up all of your software and any other technical display of your capacity will be in base two.
My 19″ monitor isn’t 19″
My AMD 1600+ doesn’t run at 1600mhz
My 56kbs modem doesn’t do 56kbs.
My 52X cdrom isn’t 52X faster than a 1X cdrom.
So of course, my 60GB HDD isn’t really 60GB.
Tiresome debate, but entertaining in that so many commenters, presumably “science” types, seem unaware of SI.
Please read Stephane’s comment again. Note that common computer biz parlance violates the standard. Most folks, companies, etc. say “256 MB” to refer to the integer 268,435,456. But it would be better to call it “268 MB”. To answer the confused look, just explain it. Sample conversation:
SI Nazi: “I’d like to buy a 268 megabyte RAM module”
Clerk: “Huh? You mean a 256?”
SIN: “No, I mean a module that has 268 million bytes, although I do realize that you call them 256’s”
Clerk: “Whatever, chump. Do you want to buy it or not?”
Educate yourself, then others. Change the world.
> When I buy a box of Kleenex, it doesn’t say
>
> 100 Tissues**
>
> **100 = 92
If I’d sell tissues I’d put 64 in a boax and label it:
100 Tissues**
**octal system, equiv to 64 in decimal
Personally, I hope the result of this is that Operating System vendors and the like have to stop falsifying the prefixes. M- has always stood for x1 000 000. A megabyte should be 1 000 000 bytes. (I can accept using K- for x1024, because the metric prefix is k-, but I would hope people stopped calling it kilo-.)
1. From IBM Glossary of computing terms:
megabyte (MB) (1) For processor storage, real and virtual storage, and channel volume, 220 or 1 048 576 bytes. (2) For disk storage capacity and communications volume, 1 000 000 bytes.
2. Perhaps are the bios utilities that are reporting wrong values. the disks have 160GB but say less.
ah, a nice unbiased source, given that (well, until they sold it off to Hitachi recently), IBM owns a hard disk manufacturing business which uses the 1000 bytes = 1kb measure…
And don’t forget that some vendors (like Compaq) use a not-so-small part of the hard drive for “restore informations” (instead of giving you a couple of CDs).
>>> ah, a nice unbiased source, given that (well, until they
>>> sold it off to Hitachi recently), IBM owns a hard disk
>>> manufacturing business which uses the 1000 bytes = 1kb
>>> measure…
1. I don’t understand what do you mean: Are you saying that IBM does not sell processor storage nor channels?
2. I was only pointing to what I think is an interesting reference, not giving my opinion about it. Sometimes I see people (not implying you but others in this page) speaking about things without first looking for or reading available docs.
Why stop at the level of a byte ? If 1 KB equals 1000 bytes, I don’t understand why one byte should consist of 8 bits. This has only historic reasons, modern computers use 64bit arithmetic for example…
Either go strictly decadic, measuring everything in BITS (1 KB = 1000 Bits, 1MB = 1.000.000 BITS) or leave it as it is (my choice)… Mixing it up just adds more confusion…
Jan
“So I really have to ask, why are so many people these days so anti-activism, be it political, consumer or other? Do you have a problem with the American way?”
You’re my favorite of the day!
I think that it has become politically incorrect to actually complain about unfair things and injustices unless they are humanitarian complaints. Result? More and more abuse gets by. Eventually these things will become humanitarian complaints because we’ll be living in the Orwellian world of 1984. The truth is, businesses will continue to take as many liberties as they can and if no one steps up and says “now hold on a minute here” they will take more and more and never stop until forced to.
Sure, no one likes complainers… but then no good change has ever come about because everyone kept their mouths shut.
> For clarity they are they not using a decimal notion in a
> binary system – they are cheating. In my book 1 MB is 1024
> KB not 1000 KB, right?
And they’re doing the right thing, indeed. the K, M and G prefixes are SI prefixes used for the decimal metric system, and they all refer to power of ten. The IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), 5 years ago, has come up with more legit prefixes for the binary system: Ki, Mi and Gi.
Have a look here for more info: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
> So the standard in Computer Science is that 1KB is 1024
> bytes, 1MB is 1024 KB, 1GB is 1024 MB etc.
Sorry, but the standard says otherwise:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html