Hard Drive - why is 2 TB only 1.8 TB ??

[James Colbert]

It strikes me that 'integrity in marketing' would dictate listing the 'user usable capacity' on the box.

Is there some valid reasoning behind this?

James

The reasoning is utterly valid.

"Integrity in marketing"

A non sequitur if ever I heard one and surely you jest.

Marketing 101 states that if 4 is good, then 5 is better.

If a 100 Watt stereo system is good, then surely a 200 Watt stereo system is better. Witness any audio retailer advertisement.

It follows that if 1000 is good, then 1024 is better, if .9313 is good, then 1.000 is better, and if 465 GB is good, then 500 GB is better.

Ad vomitum.

The measuring method is used because it is thought to be effective---a certain unknown percentage of rubes would shy away from a drive advertised at 465 GB and buy the adjacent drive measured at 500 GB, even though they have the same usable capacity.

The measuring method will be abandoned when it is thought not to be effective or when it is outlawed. Neither are on the horizon.

Can you imagine WD adopting the measuring method that yields 465 GB while Seagate continues to use the method that yields 500 GB? It won't happen as long as WD believes the rube census is greater than zero.

An appropriate assessment, I think. IOW (if I might 'boil it down'), profit driven, as suspected. But what's interesting is that today's world considers this 'valid reasoning'. I myself still consider such behavior corporate greed.

James

 

[James Colbert]

[Actually...

Thanks for a thorough response, Buddahfan.

James

 

[Dwarf]

This all depends on how you define Kilo, Mega, and Giga. In the decimal system that we are all familiar with, these are represented by 10^3, 10^6, and 10^9 respectively. In the binary system, which is the system understood by computers, these same prefixes are represented by 2^10, 2^20, and 2^30.

Because the binary versions of these prefixes are larger than the equivalent decimal ones, we get this apparent discrepancy between the advertised disk capacity (which is the decimal value) and the actual capacity as reported by the computer (the binary value). Both values are correct, in other words 500GB = 465GiB. It is just marketing convention that dictates that disks are sold with the decimal equivalent of their capacity, afterall 500GB looks better than 465GiB even though they are both the same capacity. Incidentally, even floppy disks were subject to this marketing. They were sold as 1.44MB although their reported capacity was just 1.38MiB.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

An appropriate assessment, I think. IOW (if I might 'boil it down'), profit driven, as suspected. But what's interesting is that today's world considers this 'valid reasoning'. I myself still consider such behavior corporate greed.

James

I'll grant you that it is not a particularly easy pill to swallow and subjects us all to the worst aspects of human nature, but in the absence of "profit driven", we would be using an abacus at best. Otherwise, why would anyone get out of bed?

Pick your poison.

 

[whs]

The mathmatical part is a given, but one does have to wonder why drive manufacturer's continue to rate capacities as x1000 when the majority of use will be for OS's that use x1024 (which is the actual usable capacity). It strikes me that 'integrity in marketing' would dictate listing the 'user usable capacity' on the box.

Is there some valid reasoning behind this?

James

James, what do you want then to do? it is 2 billion or 2 trillion bytes in both cases. You want them to put a huge number on the box? If someone who works with a computer does not unerstand binary, I am sorry. We had to work in Hex - now that is really fun.

 

[mikedl]

I can remember a few years back when, at the bottom of each ad flyer offering HD's and computers for sale wherein HD capacity was mentioned, there was a disclaimer about the actual HD capacity. It's been a while and I no longer see such a disclaimer. Another interesting tid-bit related to this topic:

So where did the missing gigabytes go? Were they used by formatting? Nope. Did the hard drive manufacturer lie? Nope, but they did exploit the ambiguous definition of "gigabyte". What can you do about it? Nothing, really; just be aware of the difference between advertised capacity and actual capacity.
Note that different operating systems label things differently. Mac OS X 10.6 actually uses the SI definition of a gigabyte, so your 500 GB (advertised) drive will be listed as "499 GB" or even "500 GB". Windows uses the term "gigabyte" to refer to a gibibyte, et cetera. Linux and Unix usage varies, but Gnome uses the marking "GiB" to avoid ambiguity.

link ...

 

[whs]

Sorry, but this quote was written by a retard. This is completely ridiculous.

ambiguous definition of "gigabyte

 

[James Colbert]

Because the binary versions of these prefixes are larger than the equivalent decimal ones, we get this apparent discrepancy between the advertised disk capacity (which is the decimal value) and the actual capacity as reported by the computer (the binary value). Both values are correct, in other words 500GB = 465GiB. It is just marketing convention that dictates that disks are sold with the decimal equivalent of their capacity, afterall 500GB looks better than 465GiB even though they are both the same capacity. Incidentally, even floppy disks were subject to this marketing. They were sold as 1.44MB although their reported capacity was just 1.38MiB.

Apologies to all for the delayed response. Thanks, Dwarf, for what I think is an accurate and objective response. Can't get much clearer than that.

I'll grant you that it is not a particularly easy pill to swallow and subjects us all to the worst aspects of human nature, but in the absence of "profit driven", we would be using an abacus at best. Otherwise, why would anyone get out of bed?

Pick your poison.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. I'm not against profit at all. I just believe that principle should play a guiding role. When it does, everyone wins.

James, what do you want then to do? it is 2 billion or 2 trillion bytes in both cases. You want them to put a huge number on the box? If someone who works with a computer does not unerstand binary, I am sorry. We had to work in Hex - now that is really fun.

Hi whs. No need for huge numbers. Real world numbers will do.

I guess what I'm saying is that (as a matter of principal) hard drive manufacturers should mark their products using the same 'math' that the OS's and thus real world users are subject to. They would have to do nothing more than market the drive size as '466 GB' rather than 500 GB.

James

 

[James Colbert]

Sorry, but this quote was written by a retard. This is completely ridiculous.

ambiguous definition of "gigabyte

The truth is that it is ambigous (not the math, but the marketing usage). At least to the public. Otherwise, there wouldn't be the constant barrage of 'I'm missing 40 GBs' threads.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I do think the line (along with its contextual text) is accurate, at least in part. To think that drive manufacturers don't recognize the marketing aspect of this is to call them idiots, which, certainly, they are not.

James

 

[mikedl]

Sorry, but this quote was written by a retard. This is completely ridiculous.

ambiguous definition of "gigabyte

Explain SI units and the way Mac OSX reports the size of an HD then, whs.

I would proffer the meaning of a gigabyte is definitely an ambiguous term as the general, non-computer public sees it. Apparently, HD manufacturer's have taken advantage of this fact. Well, I guess, unless one owns a MAC.

The fact we're still discussing this is a poignant indication of the inherent ambiguity regarding gigabytes in the way HD manufacturer's report HD capacity and the actual capacity realized depending on the OS one uses.

 

[whs]

Right now my thermometer shows 45 degrees - but it is just misleading me because in my reality it is 7 degrees - because I am a European and I only know Celsius. This is the analogy to your misconstrued arguments.

 

[James Colbert]

Right now my thermometer shows 45 degrees - but it is just misleading me because in my reality it is 7 degrees - because I am a European and I only know Celsius. This is the analogy to your misconstrued arguments.

I recognize validity in your view on the matter and appreciate your comments.

Thanks,
James

 

[mikedl]

Right now my thermometer shows 45 degrees - but it is just misleading me because in my reality it is 7 degrees - because I am a European and I only know Celsius. This is the analogy to your misconstrued arguments.

Fortunately, whs, most people are aware of the difference between Faernheit and Celsius temperature readings. There is little ambiguity to be found in this arena.

Conversely, when it comes to gigabytes, there is still much ambiguity. Whether that is perpetrated by the HD manufacturers and computer sellers or they have merely taken advantage of it, the reality of the ambiguity remains.

Certainly, for you and me, and many others here on these forums, we see no ambiguity. The general computing public does, however. Hence, the reason for the queries about "where did my GB's go?"

 

[mjf]

Right now my thermometer shows 45 degrees - but it is just misleading me because in my reality it is 7 degrees - because I am a European and I only know Celsius. This is the analogy to your misconstrued arguments.

Fortunately, whs, most people are aware of the difference between Faernheit and Celsius temperature readings. There is little ambiguity to be found in this arena.

Conversely, when it comes to gigabytes, there is still much ambiguity. Whether that is perpetrated by the HD manufacturers and computer sellers or they have merely taken advantage of it, the reality of the ambiguity remains.

Certainly, for you and me, and many others here on these forums, we see no ambiguity. The general computing public does, however. Hence, the reason for the queries about "where did my GB's go?"

Ok we all here know the difference between GB (base 2) and GB (base 10).

But my BIOS can interpret a USB device differently (true) if it's less than or greater than 2GB. My USB memory stick has 2 GB written on it even though it's 1.86GB (base 2). How will the BIOS treat my memory stick?

I gave my son a (WD) 500GB portable as part of his Christmas present and on the bottom of the box it defines what it means by GB (= 1 billion bytes).

 

[mikedl]

This topic is becoming quite circular in nature.

 

[mjf]

My response wasn't circular. We're all bored silly with explaining the two interpretations.
The serious point is:
When it needs to be defined it needs to be explicitly defined. Read my BIOS example.

 

[mikedl]

Sorry, mjf, I meant no offense.

My point was that most of the general computing public is not aware of the base 2 math that is used in Win 7 and then wonder why their HD manufacturer puts a different number on the description of their HD compared to the number Win 7 displays.

We do keep running in circles regarding this topic, with all due respect.

As far as your BIOS, well, that's not something the average user ever pays any attention.

And, around it goes.

 

[whs]

We do keep running in circles regarding this topic, with all due respect.

I guess we'll do that until the "last" guy understands what they missed in math class.

 

[severedsolo]

My point was that most of the general computing public is not aware of the base 2 math that is used in Win 7 and then wonder why their HD manufacturer puts a different number on the description of their HD compared to the number Win 7 displays.

To be fair, what most of the general computing public don't know about computers would fill a library.

It has been like this for almost as long as there have been HD manufacturors, so I seriously doubt they will now change. Most of the HD's I see do state on the box that its given in decimal rather than binary.

 

[LoWang]

]

LOL, on another forum last year, a Canadian lady even wanted to take the manufacturer to court for false advertising. We had a hard time to keep her from doing that.

And that means this lady is right! It is fundamentally wrong from the beginning of computer media manufacturing and I think it is just a dirty trick! There would be nothing wrong to take manufacturers to court about this IMO!
Of course you can tell me that manufacturers are actually right because MB and GB are multiplies of 1000 and only GiB and MiB are multiplies of 1024. Oh yes one can say we are all noobs and don't understand it, but that would be just closing your eyes before the world. Have you ever seen MiB or GiB being used in operating systems or programs?? I almost never had. That means it can be written in some wikipedias that there are MBs and MiB, however in reality it is simply not true and HDD manufacturers simply live in a paralel world :-\