[RuddyRum]

Whenever i installed a new HDD and set it up, i have never recieved the full capacity on the drive, (eg 200GB HDD has 190GB storage capacity) i know that the OS uses some space, but surely not that much!!!

It has never really bothered me untill now. i have bought a 400GB HDD, but can only use 360GB. that's 40GB, which i really could use, just gone!!!

What i want to ask is why exactly does this happen, and is there anyway of increasing the partition sizes?

Thanks

[Advertisements]

Welcome to the art of advertising.

You are getting the space, but it is the pre-formated space and some of the data is needed to know where things are. Another aspect is that the size can be specified in 1000 or 1024 blocks, guess which one the computer uses and guess which one the companies use.

Just look at CRT sizes, there is the size and then there is what is usable.

[Kemasa]

Welcome to the art of advertising.

You are getting the space, but it is the pre-formated space and some of the data is needed to know where things are. Another aspect is that the size can be specified in 1000 or 1024 blocks, guess which one the computer uses and guess which one the companies use.

Just look at CRT sizes, there is the size and then there is what is usable.

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

Welcome to the art of advertising.

You are getting the space, but it is the pre-formated space and some of the data is needed to know where things are. Another aspect is that the size can be specified in 1000 or 1024 blocks, guess which one the computer uses and guess which one the companies use.

Just look at CRT sizes, there is the size and then there is what is usable.

Ya I like how a 19" crt is only 17" viewable. Kinda seems like false advertising huh?

-=jonnyrotten=-

[Kemasa]

Ya I like how a 19" crt is only 17" viewable. Kinda seems like false advertising huh?

Well at least with a CRT there is something which is the measured size, even though people are not expecting that. Go check out 2x4s at the local building supply store. I tused to be that was the size of the finished product, but now it is the size that they start with. It seems very much like false advertising and it is quite deceptive, plus is makes people not be able to determine the real size of things.

Such practices creates issues like this were a person gets a disk and then finds it is not as large as they were lead to believe. Trust is broken with all retailers.

In a similar vein, consider resumes and the acceptance of it not being accurate, which hurts those who are accurate.

If some manufacturers were to be accurate, it would hurt them since people would compare the claimed sizes.

If you really want fun numbers, check out sleeping bags!!!

[greatmightypoo]

Basically your so called 400 GB hard drive is equal to 400000000000 bytes. Now 1 GB = 1024 MB, 1 MB = 1024 KB, and 1 KB = 1024 bytes. So 400000000000 bytes divided by 1024 = 390625000 KB divided by 1024 = 381469.73 MB divided by 1024 = 372.53 GB which ends up being you actual availible drive space.