Why do hard drives have less space than they are advertised? My hard drive was sold at 80 GB, but when I look at the capacity, it says 69.5 GB. Why?
by 
pcgamefreak
ANSWERS: 5
-
80GB is the RAW data storage area. However, in order to actually use the drive, it has to be formatted, which reveals the actual usable capacity which in your case is 69.5GB.
-
And just to add to what rammingbambi said, formatting uses some of the capacity to map the drive's usable area. My best analogy for this would be a 500 page blank book (if such a thing existed). You lose 2 pages to the front and back cover, then several pages to store the (even empty) table of contents and index.
-
Hard drive manufactures measure using 1000 MB per GB, but the actual conversion is 1024 MB per GB, since it's based on base 2. (2^10) The size reported by your computer is based on the correct 1024 MB/GB number.
-
Suppose you have a HD that is advertised at 750 GIG. The computer will read it at 698 GIG. You take the difference which is 52 GIG and divide that by 750. You get .069333 or 6.93%
-
As has already been mentions, drive manufacturers use a smaller measure of what a Gbyte is than does the Operating System. But also, many system sellers now include a "Recovery Partition" of 5-7 Gbyte, in which they put a backup copy of the Operating System which yu can reinstall if the main partition gets smashed.
RamJamBumbleBee RELATED QUESTIONS
Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC