Is there any company who actually sells a HDD at the actual size it is advertised?

Keltik THC · 29 Oct 2009 at 19:49

I just wondered if anyone knows if there is a HDD out there that is actually its advertised size.

I just thought a company who makes HDDs as good as anyone else would have an advantage if their drives were actually say a real Terabyte, i mean 1,024 Gigabytes (or 1,099,511,627,776 bytes)...

because if i had a choice between two equal HDDs and one was an even 1tb and the other 931 GBs, even for a little more cash i would prefer having an even 1tb.

AbsenceJam · 29 Oct 2009 at 19:53

Keltik THC · 29 Oct 2009 at 19:57

AbsenceJam said:
No.

oh well, I thought someone out there would have attempted to offer their customers something different.

rpstewart · 29 Oct 2009 at 20:04

Keltik THC said:
I just wondered if anyone knows if there is a HDD out there that is actually its advertised size.

Yes, all of them. None of them hide the fact that they use SI units.

explicit4u · 29 Oct 2009 at 21:38

AbsenceJam said:
No.

blaineoliver · 29 Oct 2009 at 21:43

No, simple as. They offer you sizes in 1000 bytes in a KB, etc. While windows does the whole 1024 business.

explicit4u · 29 Oct 2009 at 21:59

Keltik THC said:
oh well, I thought someone out there would have attempted to offer their customers something different.

If a company did do that they will probably loose out. Do you really think a granny going to buy a new HDD (not sure why she will) will know about 1000kb per MB as opposed to 1024KB per MB?

unknownsock · 30 Oct 2009 at 09:27

Well it tricks the average person whilst confusing the rest with ilogical numbers.
Rounding it up does not make it simpler, no matter what they say..

faugusztin · 30 Oct 2009 at 09:39

It's about units.
1MB = 1 000 kB = 1 000 000 B.
1MiB = 1 024 kiB = 1 048 576 B.

It's the problem of Windows and all OS that they write MB, but in reality they use MiB. Hell, even i do, but i know it's not accurate.

So HDD makers doesn't round up or lie, it's you and all people around who don't read the units correctly. If they write to the drive that it has 1TB then it really does have 1 000 000 000 000 bytes (= 1TB = 931,32 MiB), not 1 099 511 627 776 bytes (= 1.099 TB = 1TiB).

Ducky Spud · 30 Oct 2009 at 09:49

Can I just ask about my Vertex drives in here then? Got a couple of 30GB ones and when installed they showed around 29.9GB. Thats the closest Ive ever seen to being the "right" size. Are they measuring the size differently or is it somthing to do with SSD's?

daz87uk · 30 Oct 2009 at 10:39

I would Imagine because its such a small drive, the bigger the drive the more space is missing. But that does look very close to the orignal

tom_e · 30 Oct 2009 at 10:46

I think SSD's are the advertised capacity, or at least I vaguely remember reading that on here

BubbySoup · 30 Oct 2009 at 11:35

I thought the vertex drives were actually 32 or 33GB drives so when formatted, would show up as 30GB from within Windows?

Ducky Spud · 30 Oct 2009 at 11:37

Ive no idea, other than theyre advertised at 30 and thats pretty much what Ive got lol. What about others such as the M225's? Do they show up as 64GB or 60 like the vertex?

faugusztin · 30 Oct 2009 at 11:47

My Patriot 128GB is ~120GiB big.

Saundie · 30 Oct 2009 at 12:08

64GB M225 shows as 63,915,945,984 bytes, or about 59.5GiB

Nate Silvers · 30 Oct 2009 at 12:24

Intel 160GB G2 shows as 148GB

photoshop · 30 Oct 2009 at 15:52

My 2Tb is something like 1.73Tb after format. Bit rubbish really

So when we have 4Tb drives tha actual useable will be 3.46Tb! Theres 0.5Tb gone right there!

faugusztin · 30 Oct 2009 at 17:42

No, your 4TB drive will still be 4TB. True, it's only 3.46TiB, but that is 4TB. It was like this for many years, so maybe it is time to start thinking about it.

Broken Hope · 30 Oct 2009 at 17:59

Ducky Spud said:
Can I just ask about my Vertex drives in here then? Got a couple of 30GB ones and when installed they showed around 29.9GB. Thats the closest Ive ever seen to being the "right" size. Are they measuring the size differently or is it somthing to do with SSD's?

OCZ actually sell their drives as the formatted capacity where's the others aren't. So even though Crucial say their drives are 128GB I believe they will end up as 120GB formatted like the Vertex's which they are based on.