4TB Disk Win Properties capacity smaller than Disk Manager.

[WBFAir]

Hello all

I just installed a 4TB disk to my system which is now the biggest one I have ever installed.

I setup all things correct as best I know and by all the defaults and as one partition and the disk is showing in the Win disk manager utility as working correctly with saying there its final formatted capacity is 3725.90G.

Also would say I have found that to be the capacity listed for a few other things that show what it's supposed to have.

But yet when I go to Windows Explorer and click on the disk properties there, it shows its capacity at only 3.63TB.

So am trying to figure out why it is smaller there than any other place?

Note, just to be clear, I am not talking about anything with the free or used space of the disk, and or its native listed capacity of 4TB, but the listed full formatted capacity level of the disk, and really why it is less in the Windows Explorer disk properties then any other place.

Also would note that for all the other disks I have in this system, including a 3TB and two 1TB drives, those all show the correct match for this.

Lastly to note, I have try several quick re-formats of the drive, as well as a complete zero write to it, and after it's always the same.

So does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks greatly for any help

 

[Megahertz07]

Nothing to worry.
One Tera byte is 1024G. If you divide 3725.90G by 1024 = 3.6386T

 

[WBFAir]

Ok so I guess here are some things that threw me on this.

Aside from my OS drive which is not relevant, I have (had) two 1TB drives that as since they came under that after formatted came to 931.51GB in Disk Manager.

Then I have a 3TB drive that came to 3794.39GB in Disk Manager.

So in the drive properties for each disk in Explorer, the two 1TB (or 931.51GB) drives, since the math works out this way, show exactly the same of 931GB.

Then my 3TB (or 2794.39GB in Disk Manager) as I kinda just hooked it back up is showing 2.72TB in Explorer, which if I do the math you showed works out right.

So since this is the way it has been till this 4TB drive, I just thought as that 2.72TB of the 3TB drive number was so close to the 2794.39GB number it showed in Disk Manager, all things should be like the two 1TB drives.

So guess when I replaced one of the 1TB drives with the 4, things got confused in the way I described, to which you explained why.

Guess one thing that would have helped is if Disk Manager would have gone up to TB instead of only GB, but perhaps this is a limitation of Win7 as its such a older OS.

Guess the only other thing I could say is paying for but loosing so much space sure does seem to suck.

Seems as since its always a percentage amount instead of just a flat one, the more you spend to get bigger, the less you get for your money if you know what I mean.

Is probably a old complaint I know, but I can remember the days when I had entire drives the size of just what I have lost in this one.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

 

[pbcopter]

You have not lost anything. Disk manufacturers use decimal to describe the drive capacity 3TB where as the operating system uses binary 2793.97 GB

see this

Drive displays a smaller capacity than the indicated size on the drive label

 

[WBFAir]

Yeah, I kinda knew all that as have been buying hard drives for a long time so perhaps lost is not the right word but in the end it still is a bit misleading.

Not saying who is right or wrong for doing it either way, but at the end of the day its the OS we are going to be using the drive on, so just think it would at least be a nice courtesy if the drive makers could at least publish along with their labeled one, the actual capacity the drive would have when it is used for the purpose it is you are actually buying it for.

Is kinda like buying a box for tennis balls and the maker of the box use one size to say how many balls it will hold, but for all tennis balls pretty much everyone actually uses they are actually bigger, so for the ones everyone will actually be putting in the box they cannot fit all the balls they actually have.

Is even getting to be more of problem these days I think with now since the drives are getting bigger in that by this difference compounds the bigger you go.

Personally I don't have the time to do the math but I might suspect there could theoretically be a size you where by the OS measurement, you are almost half of what the makers are labeling the drives to have.

Anyway, I know this is not a argument I can win on that part, am just saying I think it would nice of the makers to at least list somewhere in the specs they seem to enjoy publishing just what the actually capacity it is the OS says we might need.

All in all it would make things a lot easier for people trying to figure out what drive size it is we could possibly need and could even prompt more people buy bigger drives when you think about it.