Hard drive question

Hi I purchased a new Sony laptop. The specs said I have 320GB, but when I check the drive, I have 270GB free of 290GB, I understand 20Gb is been used for Windows 7. But where is the rest? 30GB?

Thank you

Well, they advertise them as 1000MB's per gigabyte. In reality, there are 1024MB in a gigabyte, thus the loss.

HDD's - the Advertized size vs the Actual size.

Even with your calculation its still doesnt add up to 320GB.

290 * 1024 = 296,960GB...

Is there a different way of calculating?

The advertised space for your HD is 320GB. The companies go by the "assumption" that there are 1000MB in a GB, which is wrong.

There are actually 1024MB in a GB. The math you did was how many ACTUAL MB are in your HD by multiplying 1024, the number of MB in a GB, by 290, the ACTUAL space on your HD.

Let's do the math that was giving in the example on the link I sent you but instead of 500GB, we'll use 320GB.


320.000.000.000 byte / 1024 = 312.500.500 Kbyte

. . 312.500.500 Kbyte / 1024 = . . . 305.175 Mbyte

. . . . .305.175 Mbyte / 1024 = . . . . . . 298 Gbyte

8GB off, close enough :).

Those periods act the same as commas.

Thank you all for your help. (I guess I got cheated by 8GB) :)

It works out to just over 93.1 percent of advertised capacity; aka 6.9% shortage.

.931 x 320 gigs is 297.9

.931 x 640 is 595.8

.931 x 1 TB is 931 gigs

.931 x 1.5 TB is 1396.5 gigs

etc