Solved Missing Hard Drive Memory?

[Chips]

I've just had a Corsair SATA 120Gb hard drive installed in my new computer. Trouble is when I checked how much memory I've got it said that it's only 111Gb in total with 67Gb free! I understand that a big chunk of memory would be taken up with basic systems memory, but it said I only have a drive with 111Gb in TOTAL, not the 120Gb as it says on the box! Can anyone explain where all the memory's gone?

 

[DeaconFrost]

For the record, memory and hard drive space are two separate things. That being said, hard drives have always had lower actual sizes than advertised. For years, the explanation was printed on the sides of the boxes, but it's become common knowledge, so the warnings typically aren't printed anymore.

A gigabyte isn't 1000 megabytes, it's 1024 megabytes. A megabyte isn't 1000 kilobytes, it's 1024....and so on. 111 GB of actual space on a 120 GB drive is normal.

 

[Dwarf]

Been explained numerous times before. It's all to do with marketing, and how the term Giga is represented. Many HDD manufacturers market drives using the decimal version of Giga, which is 10^9. The computer, on the other hand, works in binary and its version of Giga is represented by 1024^3

Let's do the sums.

As marketed: 120 x 10^9 = 120,000,000,000 bytes

What the computer sees: 120,000,000,000 / 1024^3 = 111.76

 

[DeaconFrost]

That's a much better explanation than my answer.

 

[Chips]

Ahhh, riiight....that all makes logical sense.... Thanks anyways. Knew you'd all have the answer to my rather perplexing problem.

 

[Chips]

One little thing. Is it the same with solid state drives?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

One little thing. Is it the same with solid state drives?

Yes.

Although, a recent thread suggested that maybe Samsung's SSD advertised GB is the same as what Windows recognizes.

 

[Chips]

Thanks for the info!

 

[Dwarf]

Generally speaking, drive capacities (whether HDD or SSD) are quoted using the decimal version of Giga. Unfortunately, not all are and, to add to the confusion, even drives from the same manufacturer can be labeled either way.