Harddrive Measurements

[wsnowball]

Ok,
I understand CPU measurement I think (1000Mhz=1Ghz..Right?) However I don't understand hardrive measurements

In Windows Information it says the followng:

Available space on drive C: 799MB of 2302MB (FAT32)

What size hardrive do I have? I thought it was 20GB (2000MB) but then I was told it was 2.0..What is 20GB then?

Also another comp I have says the same as above only is it 8000MB? What size is it? If someone could prvode a step by step description of how these are measured I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

Life is like a bunch of roses......it is full of pricks!

[Andy-S]

Hard drive measurements use the same convention as the processor measurements with Mega meaning million and Giga meaning 1000 Million, however there may be a difference based on what the hard drive vendor uses as a Gigabyte.

Typically a Gigabyte is 1000 million Bytes. When Windows measures drive space it determines 1 Gigabyte as being 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes = 1074 million bytes. This means that if the hard drive vendor has provided you with a 20 Gigabyte drive (20,000 Million bytes) then Windows will show the drive size as 18.625 GB (20,000,000,000/(1024 x 1024 x 1024)).

The figures you quote show a partition of around 2.5 Gigabytes with 799MB free. The remaining drive space may be unpartitioned. If you use FDISK you should be able to determine the exact size of your drive.

Hope this helps

[Paradigm]

Be careful if you do repartition your hard drive using FDISK, it will completely erase all the contents on your HD. You can use commercial utilities such as PartitionMagic to get the other 18 or so GB w/o destroying your data.

[BertImmenschuh]

During POST [power on system/self testing] you should see Press DEL to enter setup or press F2 to enter setup. Look in the first menu choice for the hard drive specs or go to Auto Detect Hard Drives, this should give you what the size of the hard drive actually is. Most references say a GigaByte is 1 billion bytes, which is close enough for most of us.

The question arises as to which Operating System you are using and if the first 2047MB of the drive is formatted for FAT or FAT16 [FAT32 usually will use the full size of the drive.] If so, there may be remaining unpartitioned space on the drive, in which case you can create additional partitions using FDisk. It is real easy to select the wrong menu item and wipe out everything.

[Paul D]

Andy, I reckon you're back to front there.
A TRUE gigabyte is 1024x1024x1024 because it's measured in binary. This enables manufacturers to sell you less space than you think you're getting.

Paul D

[Andy-S]

Paul,

That's what I stated in my post. The manufacturer may sell you a drive specified as 20GB (20,000,000,000 bytes) but it is actually only 18.625GB.

[Paul D]

Yeah, I know.

I guess we're discussing the semantics of which one is a true gigabyte. I read your post (probably misread) as saying 1gb is really 1000x1000x1000, while I reckon it's 1024x1024x1024, and that the HD manufacturers are deliberately conning us.

Paul D

[jmichna]

1 gb = 1000 mb in commonly used (not precise) units. Your 2000mb = 2 gb not 20 gb. Others have shown the precise units (i.e., 1024 X 1024 X 1024, etc.)

[BertImmenschuh]

Found on Maxtor's site:

"What is a Megabyte (MB) and what is a Gigabyte (GB)?

Answer
Hard drive manufacturers define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes (1x106) and a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes (1x109). Some utilities use a binary conversion to calculate capacity. This is why users might see 504 MB reported on one utility and 528 MB from another."