8GB iPod Touch, 7GB space

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Operaghost

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What gives?

I know the software is taking up space but the breakdown looks like this:

Capacity: 7GB

Used:
133.8 MB (other)

Free:
6.87 GB

So my question is, where in the fuck is the other gig that I paid for?
 
All disk capacities now are measured using 1000 bytes per kilobyte, 1000 kB per MB etc. Computers measure capacities properly using 1024 bytes per kB, 1024 kB per MB etc. This is where the discrepancy comes in.
 
Operaghost said:
Thats false advertisement!
Click to expand...

3 things to say :

1) You're a little late on that - there was a big class-action lawsuit a while back that adressed this very same issue. As a result of which...

2) When you look at Apple's site you see a footnote next to the "8GB" figure that says "(1) 1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less."

3) Part of this is just marketing BS. Part of it is that modern storage media needs to reserve some percentage of the raw disk space to automatically remap bad sectors before you lose data (Trust me, you don't want to go back to the days when they didn't do this).

Top that off with the combined issues of an easily upgradable firmware/OS being stored on the media & the inefficiencies that will show up on any filesystem and you end up with 6.87GB free.
 
same with hard drives. i have a 250 gb hard drive but shows only 232.57 gb.
 
This isn't a matter of rounding gigabytes -- do the math.

It's a matter of the device reserving some of the 8 GB space for its own operational storage.
 
Here's the funny thing. What you're normally calling a gigabyte, as in 1024^3 bytes, is not technically a gigabyte. Giga is a prefix meaning ten to the power of nine (1000^3). A "gigabyte" of formatted space is 1 073 741 824 bytes, which is fairly close to 1 000 000 000.

The rounding is actually rounding "gigabytes" down, not the other way around.

KB, MB, GB, TB, etc, in the usual 1024 to the power of n are kibi, mebi, gibi, etc.
 
people still really ask these questions? lol.
I sold my 360 elite to a guy and he messages me going why is there only 112gb free on the 120gb system, it does have the right hard drive right?
 
this has confused a lot of people,

they should just say...8 gb 7gb user usable...which i have seen on some devices.
 
Technically IT HAS 8GB OF FLASH RAM IN IT or whatever the actual space listed is depending on the device and the model, so there's no reason to advertise it as anything else (that's where it actually would become false advertising). The OS has some files on it, the filesystem requires some space (file allocation tables, etc), updates, etc.

Do people really whine this much about a few measly megabytes and a few more songs or another game or two, perhaps a small video? Really?
 
I think Joe Avg is correct. There's 8GB of "memory" but I think 1GB is allocated to the OS. So they can technically say 8GB. Just like my Windows Mobile PC. Advertised ram is divided up into ROM and RAM but on the box it is "Total" ram.
 
ipam45 said:
this has confused a lot of people,

they should just say...8 gb 7gb user usable...which i have seen on some devices.
Click to expand...
No, they shouldn't, because it doesn't actually have 7 gigabytes of usable space. It has 8 gigabytes, as I explained before.


I think Joe Avg is correct. There's 8GB of "memory" but I think 1GB is allocated to the OS. So they can technically say 8GB. Just like my Windows Mobile PC. Advertised ram is divided up into ROM and RAM but on the box it is "Total" ram.
Click to expand...
No, that has nothing to do with it at all. It has 8 gigabytes. Giga means ten to the power of nine. 8 gigabytes is 8 000 000 000 bytes. When measured in the computer-style gibibytes, that's 7.45 "GB."


It has nothing to do with "being reserved for the OS" or whatever. It's just computers using the wrong name for the size measurement.
 
The only thing here though, is that when you buy a harddrive it is an open storage device. Depending on what operating system, how you partition it, and what file system you choose you will end up with a varying amount of space....so you can't really say 122GB (on a 130GB raw device), cause it will change. But stuff like this is closed to the user. Every single iPod is the same. So every single user who uses this product in the correct manner will only ever be able to use 87% of the storage capacity.

Thats why its not cool. It may be "correct" buts its not cool when it such a huge amount.

I'm glad CD-R's never had this problem....you could get damn near the full 700MB
 
Every single iPod is the same. So every single user who uses this product in the correct manner will only ever be able to use 87% of the storage capacity.
Click to expand...
No, they can use 99 % or so of the storage capacity. Some of it is used for the operating system and what have you, but it's not that much.

Partitioning systems has a negligible effect on the amount of available space.

The storage capacity for a 1 GB disk is one billion bytes. A computer-style "GB" is 1.074 real GB. 1 real GB is 0.931 computer-style "GB."

This is all there's to it.
 
8 billion byte capacity

1024 bytes in a kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte, 1024 megabytes in a gigabyte.

8,000,000,000 bytes / 1024^3 = 7.45 GiB as reported in the OS.

Then iPod OS and database will take some space.
 
... except that the iPod Touch uses flash memory, not a spinning disk. Flash chips are sold with 2^30 gigiabytes, not 10^9 gigabytes.
 
I feel like crying now. Even Facepalm is insufficient.


Also, from Apple's website:
1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.
 
Seriously, W T F, people still do not understand the way buying memory/storage works?

Its not a scam people, and it would confuse the shit out of just about everyone that gets it if a company started selling things that gave you say 8gb free when it says it is 8gb.

We know how it works, we account for it, done deal.
 
Menelmarar said:
Doesn't everyone? :mad:
Click to expand...

Huh? Doesn't everyone do what, now?
Black Morty Rackham said:
"Rounding"? "Advantage"? You've missed the point.
Click to expand...

I guess so. Which point is that?

What I'm pointing out is that flash chips are sold by binary size. They're solid-state memory, with binary address lines. Apple uses 8 gigabyte ( 8,589,934,592 bytes ) but advertises the product as having 8 gigabytes ( 8,000,000,000 bytes ) of storage. The half-gig they round down is buffer that they can use to reduce the perceived size of their system storage requirements, rather than building the device with 9 gigabytes ( 9663676416 bytes ), using an additional 1 gig part intnerally for system storage ( 1,073,741,824 bytes ), and marketing it with 8 gigabytes ( 8,589,934,592 bytes ) of usable storage.

We're all used to seeing spinning storage marketed with decade units. It's natural, because there's no natural base driving the addressing of the physical storage. That's not true for memory, including flash, though; which makes the use of base-ten quantities here surprising.
 
Sheesh, we're still on this?

Chalk it up to:
1) Marketing (They are using the SI 'kilo' meaning 1000, not the CS 'kilo' meaning 1024, etc)
2) Internal OS/Database usage
3) "Regular" people don't count in base 2

Factor all these and your 8gb = 7gb usable space.

Now if they marketed it as 8GiB, and you only get 8,000,000,000 bytes, i'd be pissed.
 
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