General Comment on HDD, Memory & CPU

I always wondered and was sorta irritated to find that sometimes u have a computer that should have came with say 160GB of HDD space but yet you go to 'My Computer' and check the C: drive and see like a total of 148GB...what gives?

You suppose to have 1GB of memory in ur computer...u check ur computer's properties and u see 992MB...what's the deal

Your CPU should be 2.4GHz..u go into the computer properties and see 2.19. You close the window, go back in the properties and it's something else....

Ah mean there are very good reasons for all of this but y can't it just all b perfect and stable!

Edit: I'm just Venting here....

 

HDD - This is a scam that has been going on for years, and nothing is going to change. 1TB => 931GB, 750GB => 698GB, 500GB => 465GB, 320GB => 298GB, and on and on. Lawsuits have been filed and won, but this hasn't changed appreciably.

RAM - This is probably because you have an integrated GPU, which uses a few MB during normal operation.

CPU - Google 'speedstep.'

 

Ok then i guess i should be more frustrated about the HDD issue.

I totally understand the CPU thing more so now because I noticed this first with the AMD Athlon 64 4000+ chip that i have in my R4000...it seems to be using the CoolnQuiet technology. So that's understood

The memory i understand as well but i'd rather the computer lie to me when i go to it's properties, so i can see the 'total' memory instead of what it actually have for itself separate from the GPU.

 

believe me i am by no means defending those HDD manufacturers
but here is a good explination of what they are doing...MARKETING

I found this article regarding drive size capacity and why the advertised size is always bigger than the formatted size....

Question
Why is my drive displaying a slightly less than expected capacity in Windows or Mac?

Answer
Determining drive capacity can be confusing at times because of the different measurement standards that are often used. When dealing with Windows and Mac based systems, you will commonly see both decimal measurements and binary measurements of a drive's capacity. In either case, a drive's capacity is measured by using the total number of bytes available on the drive. As long as the drive displays the correct number of bytes (approximate), you are getting the drive's full capacity.

Decimal vs. Binary:
For simplicity and consistency, hard drive manufacturers define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes. This is a decimal (base 10) measurement and is the industry standard. However, certain system BIOSs, FDISK and Windows define a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes. Mac systems also use these values. These are binary (base 2) measurements.

To Determine Decimal Capacity:
A decimal capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,000,000,000 using base 10).

To Determine Binary Capacity:
A binary capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,073,741,824 using base 2).

This is why different utilities will report different capacities for the same drive. The number of bytes is the same, but a different number of bytes is used to make a megabyte and a gigabyte. This is similar to the difference between 0 degrees Celsius and 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It is the same temperature, but will be reported differently depending on the scale you are using.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Various Drive Sizes and their Binary and Decimal Capacities

Drive Size--------Approximate--------Decimal Capacity--------Approx Binary Capacity
in GB--------------Total Bytes------(bytes/1,000,000,000)-----(bytes/1,073,724,841)
10 GB-------------10,000,000,000------------10 GB------------------------9.31 GB
20 GB-------------20,000,000,000------------20 GB------------------------18.63 GB
30 GB-------------30,000,000,000------------30 GB------------------------27.94 GB
40 GB-------------40,000,000,000------------40 GB------------------------37.25 GB
60 GB-------------60,000,000,000------------60 GB------------------------55.88 GB
80 GB-------------80,000,000,000------------80 GB------------------------74.51 GB
100 GB-----------100,000,000,000-----------100 GB------------------------93.13 GB
120 GB-----------120,000,000,000-----------120 GB-----------------------111.76 GB
160 GB-----------160,000,000,000-----------160 GB-----------------------149.01 GB
180 GB-----------180,000,000,000-----------180 GB-----------------------167.64 GB
200 GB-----------200,000,000,000-----------200 GB-----------------------186.26 GB
250 GB-----------250,000,000,000-----------250 GB-----------------------232.83 GB


just some info so we all know the REAL truth!

later,
bigO

 

bigozone has it all.
there are two measures of capacity.

 

Viz hdd space - it's sorta like dimensional lumber, e.g., a 2x4 (that's a board with nominal cross-sectional dimensions of 2 inches by 4 inches ) most definitely does not have a cross section that's 2 inches by 4 inches. Those are the nominal dimensions; the actual dimensions are typically 1½ × 3½ inches. I learned this the hard way the first time I tried to build a deck for my parents' backyard. As with everything else in life, it always pays to measure it yourself, or read the fine print.

 

bigozone has the data. It's a matter of debate in many circles (you can also look up KiB, MiB, GiB etc) as to which is strictly "correct", but when your computer counts the size, it will always use binary orders of magnitude for storage space (be it RAM or HDD). I personally subscribe to the idea that that is the correct way to count it, and the HDD manufacturers are being disengenuous.

 

thanks for the kind words..

and i agree

a gig is 1024^3 or 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 1,073,724,841 bytes whiich is a TRUE GIGABYTE

not 1000^3 or 1000 x 1000 x1000 = 1,000,000,000 bytes or 1 billion bytes ... not a GIGABYTE

1,000,000,000 will never equal 1,073,724,841

HDD manufacturers need to atleast put BOTH numbers on packages and labels of drives..... and stop trying to fool the public w/ thier trickery of symantics and math... and that tiny fine print

later,
bigO

 

Yup. The only way I could see justifying what they do is symantics. The physical disk could be measured in base10 as it is a phyiscal/physics property how many magnetic spots there are packed on the disk, while the logical volume would be measured in base2 as it is the size as measured by the system.

Fortunately, it looks like SSDs are being marketed with base2 sizes, so hopefully within the next 10 years, base10 HDD sizing will go out the window.