Question regarding dis space...

I recently bought an FW model. It's supposed to be a 320GB notebook. But when I click on computer (in the start menu) it reads 287GB total.

Of even more importance...it says I have 210GB remaining and I'd be surprised if I added 10GB worth of programs, etc.

Could this be right? I called Sony support but they were of little help, and of course the company outsourced the CS.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

First of all:
Hard disk sellers count 320 GB as 320*1000*1000*1000 bytes, or 320,000,000,000 bytes.
Most operating systems counts 320 GB as 320*1024*1024*1024 bytes, or 343,597,383,680 bytes.
Or, the other way around, a drive sold as 320 GB will show up as a 298 GB drive in Windows.

Then there's the overhead of formatting the drive. Space is set aside on the drive for file allocation tables, partitioning data and sundry. So you lose another chunk. A couple percent at best -- far more at worst.

Then there's the rescue partition which many OEM makers like Sony place on the drive. It contains the installation media for re-installing your OS on the main partition, in case you ever screw up really bad and need to redo from start, do not pass go, do not collect $200. That's another 4-10 GB, easily.

By now you're down to the 287 GB that you see.

As for how much space is used to start with, remember that unless you installed the OS yourself, it WILL come with bloatware. Trialware, crippleware, useless self-praising software, huge big video files that teach you what you already have to know in order to be able to start and view the huge big video file, you name it.

Oh, and then there's the hibernation and paging files.
The hibernation file must be as large as the amount of usable memory on your machine. If you have 3 GB memory, that's 3 GB lost right there, unless you turn off hibernation.
The paging file varies in size, but often start at 1.5 times the memory on your system. Another big chunk gone.

Then there are restore points, which save copies of everything you've updated or changed, usually up to a fixed size of your HD. 10% is the default, I think.

Oh, and if you use networking and have a business or better class Windows, there's also cached copies of remote files.

Then there's browser cache. Movies that you watched through a web browser might linger in cache until you clean them out.

There's a simple formula for calculating how much disk space you need: First start with how much you THINK you need.
Then multiply that with three, and you may get by - just barely.

 

arth is correct. Take a look at this website that talks about hdd sizes.

I have a 320gb drive in my SR and I found this:

320gb drive (less 70.3mb per gig (-22.5gb) according to the website above)
= 297.5gb actual size
minus 10.37gb hidden sony recovery partition
= 287.13gb available to use.

factor in the size of Vista + a few apps, + pagefile and hibernation files + the ballooning of the winsxs file, equals a lot of space used up.

 

Thanks for your help, guys!