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

[Buddahfan]

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 have never understood why people use "weather" thermometers.

If you feel too cold you put on more clothes and/or turn up the heat to get comfortable.

If you feel too hot you wear less clothes and/or turn the temperature down on your air conditioner to get comfortable.

Knowing what the temperature says on a "weather" thermometer does not change your atmospheric comfort level.

 

[James Colbert]

Knowing what the temperature says on a "weather" thermometer does not change your atmospheric comfort level.

Not understanding the actual capacity your drive, however, does .

 

[James Colbert]

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.

And therein lies the confusion: which math? We know which math you refer to, but how about Average John Doe? How about those who skipped HD math altogether (which is the majority of the computer using world)?

The point is not that the math you and HD mfrs & marketers use is invalid, nor is it that the math the OS's use (and which users are subject to) is invalid, it's that there are 2 different 'maths' in play here, and this is the problem (as is evidenced by this and many, many other threads).

Further, to say that the HD mfrs are unaware of the dynamics of these different maths is to under-estimate them.

Both maths are legitimate, but the use of both in the manner that exists leaves users feeling cheated. This cannot be denied.

James

 

[whs]

]

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 :-\

This is a red herring. 2 billion bytes are 2 billon bytes, regardless whether expressed in decimal GBs or binary GBs. I would like to see the mess when things are being specified in binary for those "appliance users". They should have been awake during math class.

 

[LoWang]

whs why don't you tell it to operating system programmers who merrilly use GBs and MBs in all their software but not those you are talking about? It seems THEY were asleep during math class weren't they?

 

[mikedl]

Thanks, LoWang. I know of one group that certainly was not sleeping in class; the HD marketing guys ...

 

[whs]

Hi friends, we are beating this horse to death. But I am going to make a last attempt to explan it to you. (Btw: I was an Operating System Programmer for 35 years).

Last month, I bought an item here in Florida for $100. Today I get my credit card statement and the item is listed at 76.45. So you would think I made a good deal. Not so, because my credit card is from a German Bank and the 76.45 is Euros which is worth exactly the same as $100 (the day they made the conversion). It is just expressed in another currency. Imagine I would ask the American cashier to express the prices in Euros. That would really confuse them - to say the least.

Now back to the marketing guys for disks. They could state the capacity in binary. Then it would read 1.8TB binary for a disk the has the capacity of 2 trillion bytes. You think that would help? Our normal world is in decimal, that's why the say 2TB for 2 trillion bytes. Does'nt that make more sense?

In summary, 2 trillion bytes can be expressed as 2TB in decimal (which is our normal world) or as 1.8TB in binary (which is the world of computers). But that does not change the capacity - it is 2 trillion bytes in both cases.

 

[derekimo]

Hi friends, we are beating this horse to death. But I am going to make a last attempt to explan it to you. (Btw: I was an Operating System Programmer for 35 years).

Last month, I bought an item here in Florida for $100. Today I get my credit card statement and the item is listed at 76.45. So you would think I made a good deal. Not so, because my credit card is from a German Bank and the 76.45 is Euros which is worth exactly the same as $100 (the day they made the conversion). It is just expressed in another currency. Imagine I would ask the American cashier to express the prices in Euros. That would really confuse them - to say the least.

Now back to the marketing guys for disks. They could state the capacity in binary. Then it would read 1.8TB binary for a disk the has the capacity of 2 trillion bytes. You think that would help? Our normal world is in decimal, that's why the say 2TB for 2 trillion bytes. Does'nt that make more sense?

In summary, 2 trillion bytes can be expressed as 2TB in decimal (which is our normal world) or as 1.8TB in binary (which is the world of computers). But that does not change the capacity - it is 2 trillion bytes in both cases.

Excellent explanation Wolfgang!

Case closed, let the horse rest in peace.

 

[Dogz]

Hi Folks - new member, first thread.

I have several hard drives, mostly Western Digital.

The advertised 2 TB only shows up as 1.8 TB, and so keeping it below the 80-90 percent full means it is pretty much "full" at about 1.5 TB.

Ditto my 1 TB, which shows up as 900 MB, and my 1.5 TB which shows up as 1.3 TB.

So the questions:
- why do they advertise as 2 TB when its only 90 percent of that ?
- am i doing the right thing by keeping the drives below about 80-90 percent of the 1.8 TB max capacity ?

- OR -

- do i really have a full 2 TB capacity, and its just formatted to display "full" at the 90% point of 2 TB, which is 1.8 TB (in other words i can safely store up to a full 1.8 TB point, rather than 80-90 percent of THAT).......

thanks guys, i'll look forward to the reply,

jm

Part of that 2TB is used by the hard drive to organize data.

 

[James Colbert]

Excellent explanation Wolfgang!

Case closed, let the horse rest in peace.

Hi Derek. Understanding of the 'math' involved notwithstanding, unfortunately, the 'case' will continue (as will the threads) as long as the average user doesn't understand where his "missing GBs" went. Not an argument, but a statement of reality.

James

 

[derekimo]

Excellent explanation Wolfgang!

Case closed, let the horse rest in peace.

Hi Derek. Understanding of the 'math' involved notwithstanding, unfortunately, the 'case' will continue (as will the threads) as long as the average user doesn't understand where his "missing GBs" went. Not an argument, but a statement of reality.

James

I understand, but it is what it is. Wishful thinking I guess.

 

[James Colbert]

Excellent explanation Wolfgang!

Case closed, let the horse rest in peace.

Hi Derek. Understanding of the 'math' involved notwithstanding, unfortunately, the 'case' will continue (as will the threads) as long as the average user doesn't understand where his "missing GBs" went. Not an argument, but a statement of reality.

James

I understand, but it is what it is. Wishful thinking I guess.

Appreciated all the opinions and info put forth in this thread, and wish happy holidays to all!

James

 

[derekimo]

Hi Derek. Understanding of the 'math' involved notwithstanding, unfortunately, the 'case' will continue (as will the threads) as long as the average user doesn't understand where his "missing GBs" went. Not an argument, but a statement of reality.

James

I understand, but it is what it is. Wishful thinking I guess.

Appreciated all the opinions and info put forth in this thread, and wish happy holidays to all!

James

And to you as well James!

 

[profdlp]

...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...

I agree with your entire post - with one exception:

I would bet that the marketers know exactly what percentage of rubes would do that.

...I have never understood why people use "weather" thermometers.

If you feel too cold you put on more clothes and/or turn up the heat to get comfortable.

If you feel too hot you wear less clothes and/or turn the temperature down on your air conditioner to get comfortable.

Knowing what the temperature says on a "weather" thermometer does not change your atmospheric comfort level.

Yeah, but it's easier to know such things before you take your dogs out for a whiz, then have to drag them back in to add/remove clothes.

 

[omnimodis78]

Clearly there are two camps here! The one is explaining how mathematically it all makes sense, and the other is saying that when we buy a drive that shows "2TB", it should show up as a 2TB drive in the computer also. Frankly, I choose to side with the 2nd camp because when I buy a 2L carton of milk, I'm getting 2L of milk, when I buy a pair of shoes, I'm getting a complete pair of shoes. When I pay to see a movie, I'm not asked 90% into the movie to get up and leave...so why are we sold a drive that claims a 2TB capacity and then see...let me check...yup...1.81TB. Yes, we all get it, the drive actually has 2,000,396,742,656 bytes, and that's fine - but the box didn't specify that, it specified 2TB - so, I would expect there to be enough bytes to result in a full 2TB capacity. It's just a matter of perception, but 2TB does not mathematically equal to 1.81TB - and that's the point.

 

[derekimo]

Clearly there are two camps here! The one is explaining how mathematically it all makes sense, and the other is saying that when we buy a drive that shows "2TB", it should show up as a 2TB drive in the computer also. Frankly, I choose to side with the 2nd camp because when I buy a 2L carton of milk, I'm getting 2L of milk, when I buy a pair of shoes, I'm getting a complete pair of shoes. When I pay to see a movie, I'm not asked 90% into the movie to get up and leave...so why are we sold a drive that claims a 2TB capacity and then see...let me check...yup...1.81TB. Yes, we all get it, the drive actually has 2,000,396,742,656 bytes, and that's fine - but the box didn't specify that, it specified 2TB - so, I would expect there to be enough bytes to result in a full 2TB capacity. It's just a matter of perception, but 2TB does not mathematically equal to 1.81TB - and that's the point.

Understood, but nobody here can actually change the way it's done.

 

[whs]

Clearly there are two camps here! The one is explaining how mathematically it all makes sense, and the other is saying that when we buy a drive that shows "2TB", it should show up as a 2TB drive in the computer also. Frankly, I choose to side with the 2nd camp because when I buy a 2L carton of milk, I'm getting 2L of milk, when I buy a pair of shoes, I'm getting a complete pair of shoes. When I pay to see a movie, I'm not asked 90% into the movie to get up and leave...so why are we sold a drive that claims a 2TB capacity and then see...let me check...yup...1.81TB. Yes, we all get it, the drive actually has 2,000,396,742,656 bytes, and that's fine - but the box didn't specify that, it specified 2TB - so, I would expect there to be enough bytes to result in a full 2TB capacity. It's just a matter of perception, but 2TB does not mathematically equal to 1.81TB - and that's the point.

If you want it to show as 2TB, you have to teach the PC how to run in decimal - or use an IBM 7070 (from the 60's). That was a decimal computer.

 

[Julio Cortez]

Yes, we all get it, the drive actually has 2,000,396,742,656 bytes, and that's fine - but the box didn't specify that, it specified 2TB - so, I would expect there to be enough bytes to result in a full 2TB capacity.

It holds MORE than 2TB actually (2,000,396,742,656 > 2,000,000,000,000 which is 2TB).

It's just a matter of perception, but 2TB does not mathematically equal to 1.81TB

Of course not. What if I told you that 1 MPH = 1 Km/h? You would consider me a fool, wouldn't you?
The same way, 1 TB != 1 TiB. They do look and size similar (even if they're completely different each other), but that i of difference is there for a reason. The correct equation is 2 TB = 1.8 TiB, in this case.

Then, if the OS still shows disk capacity in GiBs but labels them as GBs, I agree it adds to the confusion.

 

[BrightBlessings]

 

[LoWang]

Clearly there are two camps here! The one is explaining how mathematically it all makes sense, and the other is saying that when we buy a drive that shows "2TB", it should show up as a 2TB drive in the computer also. Frankly, I choose to side with the 2nd camp because when I buy a 2L carton of milk, I'm getting 2L of milk, when I buy a pair of shoes, I'm getting a complete pair of shoes. When I pay to see a movie, I'm not asked 90% into the movie to get up and leave...so why are we sold a drive that claims a 2TB capacity and then see...let me check...yup...1.81TB. Yes, we all get it, the drive actually has 2,000,396,742,656 bytes, and that's fine - but the box didn't specify that, it specified 2TB - so, I would expect there to be enough bytes to result in a full 2TB capacity. It's just a matter of perception, but 2TB does not mathematically equal to 1.81TB - and that's the point.

I agree with you 90%. You are wrong with the last sentence and you obviously did not read my previous post here It is true that somebody someday invented GiB and MiB units but all the programmers of the world ignore this and use GB and MB in software instead thus confusing everybody who buy a floppy disk, hard disk or a DVD. HDD manufacturers are technically right with their labels but they are horribly wrong in real world usage of these units