Storage space and actual space

CONSOLE_BUTCHER

CONSOLE_BUTCHER

CONSOLE_BUTCHER

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im guessing this or something similar may have already been posted. why is it that storage devices such as HDD/SSD/USB have an amount that says so much but when you use or check the amount in a system, there is a decent amount missing?

for example I recently bought a 500GB SSD for my ps4 but when I checked the amount the ps4 was actually using it said it was about 404GB total.

where has the extra 96GB gone? I know for a fact that it wasn't on the OS , pc OS don't even use close to that and the ps4 OS download was only roughly 900MB.

I also bought a different storage device for my ps4 which is 1TB but when I check, it only says I have 861.2GB.

double you tea eff has happened to 140GB of space?
 
It's to do with how the manufacturers and OS developers calculate 1GB of space. Technically a GB is 1024mb which is how the OS sees it but the HDD it's self is 24mb less for each GB (could be visa-versa can't remember)

You basically loose 24mb for every GB!
 
if it is apparently calculated as an extra 24mb per gig, why don't they show that? given how complex a computer can be, I thought there would atleast be a program smart enough to be able to recognise the difference between 1GB and 1.24GB.

its either dodgy programing or greed lol

" i'll tell you its a 1TB device , but if you actually want 1TB your gonna have to fork out a little bit more to actually get 1TB . buy another device and the combo will make 1TB or roughly round about. whilst at the same time you lost a little bit more than you thought you paid for with the second device . "

and if its 24mb to the GB then there should only be 24GB lost to the TB
 
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the ps4 reserves space for the OS a lot of space.

think about it, lets say the decide to upgrade the OS but you don't have enough space? so they reserve space for the OS install and also for the OS to use as the OS requires additional space when installing games, etc. it will also be downloaded as a compressed file and then become expanded on install.

iirc the space lost is nothing to do with how manufacturers calculate it, it's to do with mapping the drive. each drive has a map and that map tells the OS where to look for stuff. the bigger the drive the bigger the map needs to be. think about it a map of london is going to be a lot smaller than a map of europe.

so your losing space which is reserved by the OS. the rest is to the drive mapping.

also you shouldn't be using an SSD on a PS4 but that altogether is a different matter, look in console section for more info
 
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CONSOLE_BUTCHER said:
I think you should recheck that link ...
Click to expand...

Editing a wikipedia page just makes you look silly.

The reason it looks like a lot less is because hard disk manufacturers quote the disk size in Gigabyte (GB) or Terabytes (TB) whereas operating systems quote those sizes in Gibbibytes (GiB and Tebbibytes (TiB) for example 1TB is in a tualy fact around 931 GiB then you take away an amount for OS space and swap file and other areas of the disk that need to be partioned off for other vital function a d you find you have around 800 GiB or around 860GB. Though when you look at the properties page it just says GB as it is a unit that people recognise
 
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I've found from personal experience that formatting an SSD reduces the space each time. My Intel 330 started off as 120GB but ended up at 109GB after a couple of botched first time installs and subsequent formats. But yeah, I've noticed that in general with most storage devices. 1TB external drive shows as 900 something GB and a 500GB one showed up as 470GB ish. Even my 32GB microSD is just 29GB of usable storage space, not just PC HDDs. It's just the way things are I guess.
 
It's simply a difference in how the same term is defined:

- Manufacturers define 1 TB as 1000 GB, 1 GB as 1000 MB and 1 MB as 1000 kB
- OS developers define 1 TB as 1024 GB, 1 GB as 1024 MB and 1 MB as 1024 kB

So...

6 x [Manufacturer TB] = 5587.93 [OS MB], which is 5.46 [OS TB]

In conclusion, a "6 TB" drive, will show as 5.46 TB in Windows or Linux.
 
rotor said:
It's simply a difference in how the same term is defined:

- Manufacturers define 1 TB as 1000 GB, 1 GB as 1000 MB and 1 MB as 1000 kB
- OS developers define 1 TB as 1024 GB, 1 GB as 1024 MB and 1 MB as 1024 kB

So...

6 x [Manufacturer TB] = 5587.93 [OS MB], which is 5.46 [OS TB]

In conclusion, a "6 TB" drive, will show as 5.46 TB in Windows or Linux.
Click to expand...

+1

This explains everything. It seems that just times the shown capacity by 0.91ish to get the size as shown in an OS. It's roughly accurate, my 500GB HDD should be 455GB from 500x0.91, but it comes in close at 465. Though I could have just made a mistake, I'm not good at maths nowadays.
 
rotor said:
It's simply a difference in how the same term is defined:

- Manufacturers define 1 TB as 1000 GB, 1 GB as 1000 MB and 1 MB as 1000 kB
- OS developers define 1 TB as 1024 GB, 1 GB as 1024 MB and 1 MB as 1024 kB

So...

6 x [Manufacturer TB] = 5587.93 [OS MB], which is 5.46 [OS TB]

In conclusion, a "6 TB" drive, will show as 5.46 TB in Windows or Linux.
Click to expand...

This in a nutshell. And just to expand on why it is 1024, as PC's are binary systems the capacities are measured in powers of 2.
So 1TB = 2^10 GB, 1GB = 2^10 MB, 1MB = 2^10 KB, 1KB = 2^10 B
 
Clav said:
This in a nutshell. And just to expand on why it is 1024, as PC's are binary systems the capacities are measured in powers of 2.
So 1TB = 2^10 GB, 1GB = 2^10 MB, 1MB = 2^10 KB, 1KB = 2^10 B
Click to expand...
That's not true though, it's just such a common mistake that it's become "the norm".

1 GB = 1000 MB, 1 MB = 1000 kB, 1 kB = 1000 B
1 GiB = 1024 MiB, 1 MiB = 1024 KiB, 1 KiB = 1024 B

1 TB = ~0.91 TiB
 
DragonQ said:
That's not true though, it's just such a common mistake that it's become "the norm".

1 GB = 1000 MB, 1 MB = 1000 kB, 1 kB = 1000 B
1 GiB = 1024 MiB, 1 MiB = 1024 KiB, 1 KiB = 1024 B

1 TB = ~0.91 TiB
Click to expand...
While strictly true, the TiB nomenclature has failed from the real-world use point of view. The only people on the planet who define a TB as 1000 GB are the marketing departments of storage device manufacturers. I don't intend to ever use TiB as that is just extremely confusing to everybody (who has no idea what TiB is, aka 99.99999% of the planet), and it was the marketing people who subverted the definition in the first place.
 
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