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    Can't Use all hard drive space?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by rj686, Dec 7, 2006.

  1. rj686

    rj686 Notebook Consultant

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    I was just wondering why if my hdd is advertised at 100 gigs of space that i can't use 100 gigs of the space. I know system files take up space, and file system format might make things different, but why is my partition size listed at 93 gigs instead of 100 gigs? I have a W3J, i only have 1 partition on this drive.....


    Any information is appreciated :)
     
    rj686, Dec 7, 2006
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  2. Gator

    Gator Go Gators!

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    Hard drive manufacturers use base 10 to calculate the size of a gigabyte, whereas software companies and Microsoft use base 2. Thus, 100GB in base 10 is 93.1 GB in base 2. So really the hard drive manufacturers just want to make their product sound better.
     
    Gator, Dec 7, 2006
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  3. rj686

    rj686 Notebook Consultant

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    LoL advertising at it's finest. Thank you for the explanation. I was just hoping i didn't have bad sectors on my disk. Which seems not to be the case ;).
     
    rj686, Dec 7, 2006
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  4. Pitabred

    Pitabred Linux geek con rat flail!

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    Good explanation, gatordude123. Check wikipedia for more in-depth if you care, rj686. It's also worth noting that when you format a drive, a non-insignificant portion of the space goes to setting up the directory structure and so on, so you "lose" some space there too, while gaining the ability to store files on a drive and see it in Windows. That tradeoff is usually worth it, though ;)
     
    Pitabred, Dec 8, 2006
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