Where does the other HD Space go?

Okay, this may be an old question, But I just can not stop thinking of where the rest of the HD space goes.

Let me explain more Clearly: I Bought a 320 GB Hard Drive, but only 305 GB is available for use.

So I am Wondering where did the 15GB go? Are there some important files (like things that lets the HD tick) in those missing GB?

Hope to get some explanations on this... I may have already said that I am not quite the Techie...

Thanks All!

 

Somebody may give you a more in depth answer but the short of it is...

There is two different ways of measuring disk space.. when measured the one way you have 320GB, when measured the other way, you have 305.

 

I am guesing that space is reserved for windows recovery. If you fully reformatte your hard drive you should have very close to 320GB.

 

Harddrive manufacturers measure hard disk sized based on 1000KB= 1MB & 1000MB = 1GB.

However, Windows actually calculates it the accurate way which is 1024KB = 1MB &1024MB = 1GB. Therefore, although you purchased a 320GB harddrive, realistically it's 305GB.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibibyte
"The confusion if kilobyte is used to refer to both 1,000 and 1,024 bytes became more substantial when hard drives grew to gigabyte and larger units."

 

So essentially it's 320,000,000 KB total disk space.

320,000,000 KiloBytes = 312500 MB
312500 MB = 305.18 GB

 

Really? I did not know that...

Wow, Windows do know how to rip off its customers...

 

It's not windows that's mis-informing the public, it's the marketing gurus at the hard drive companies fault.

On the other hand, server or enterprise hard drives usually say the correct size.

For Example: Western Digital's 74GB Raptor drives

 

Actually, you're a little lucky on the capacity war. Most 320GB drives are only 298.1GB.

 

Yep, Greg is right some manufacturers go bytes. So if they sell a 320GB drive, it's 320,000,000,000 bytes.

However, 1024 Bytes = 1KB. So in that case it's 298 GB.

 

Hey lucky Josh. What brand is it?

 

Well my Scorpio Black is 298GB, so it's not Western Digital, I had a Hitachi before this and it was also 298GB. Seagate perhaps?

 

Cool. So hotter drive but more space. Sounds fair.

 

Lucky me then

 

I am pretty sure Scorpio Black is a Western Digital brand. In fact, it even says so in your signature.

 

he means that his is a WD, so it's not the wd that has 305GB...

 

And you can't even use all the 298GB that you do get, because some of that goes to Windows recovery and page file.

 

That's why you disable it =D

 

There's an article here on NBR explaining where does the space go! - http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=167983

 

let's not forget overhead...while ntfs is far more efficient then the old fat days, you are still wasting space there, too....I know that is not what the OP is talking about, but I felt strangely compelled to toss that in....