How big is your drive, actually?

Are you getting the capacity that you paid for.

  • Dead on, Got what I paid for.

    Votes: 13 54.2%
  • I have been robbed!

    Votes: 8 33.3%
  • Shiny button...

    Votes: 6 25.0%

  • Total voters
    24

Patriot

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - March 2011/June 2013/De
Joined
Dec 15, 2010
Messages
2,502
How big is your drive vs its advertised size?

remember the GB vs GiB
However it seems some companies are using that as an excuse to excise some extra space to increase margins...

Good resource for the conversion.
http://wintelguy.com/gb2gib.html

Please post your drive, Advertised and actual...
I think it would be cool to end up with enough data to make an article out of.

Reminder, What you see on your computer is GiB base 2, Marketed size is base 10.
 
Last edited:
Patriot Autobahn "8GB" usb 2.0 psf8glsabusb
Advertised 8GB (7.45GiB)
Actual 7.73GB (7.2GiB)
 
My drives are a little larger than the manufacturer specificed size for example a 4TB drive has 787030016 additional bytes over the manufacturer specification.

Code:
# fdisk -l /dev/sdc

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdc'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdc: 4000.8 GB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1               1  4294967295  2147483647+  ee  GPT
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
 
My drives are a little larger than the manufacturer specificed size for example a 4TB drive has 787030016 additional bytes over the manufacturer specification.

Code:
# fdisk -l /dev/sdc

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdc'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdc: 4000.8 GB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1               1  4294967295  2147483647+  ee  GPT
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Brand and model if you can...
I would like to shed some light on Manufacturers the good and the bad ;)
 
Seagate ST4000DM000

Code:
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     ST4000DM000-1F2168
Serial Number:    W300FC1Z
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 0699e35db
Firmware Version: CC52
User Capacity:    4,000,787,030,016 bytes [4.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5900 rpm
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sun Jul 21 23:12:31 2013 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
 
If Windows changed to base 10 then everything would be fixed, you would see the same number as what's on the box. Else storage manufacturers need to change to base 2 (which is what should actually be done, since that's how computers read it).
 
Pffffffft. If you're going to scam your customers on your drive space, go all in and program a 128MB flash drive to look like a 500GB HDD.

There is no monetary incentive for a manufacturer to short a drive a few GB. There just wouldn't be any point to it. Making a HDD or SSD is not like filling a gas tank. The data storage medium, the materials that go in the drive, is not the expensive part.
 
I've got one drive here that is undersized and many that are spot on.
 
My disks have always been bigger than advertised.

300GB WD Velociraptor is 300,066,795,520 bytes.
1.5TB Seagate is 1,500,299,390,976 bytes.
2TB Samsung is 2,000,396,742,656 bytes.
2TB WD is 2,000,263,573,504 bytes.
3TB Seagate is 3,000,591,446,016 bytes

I've never actually seen a disk that was smaller than the advertised capacity.
 
If Windows changed to base 10 then everything would be fixed, you would see the same number as what's on the box. Else storage manufacturers need to change to base 2 (which is what should actually be done, since that's how computers read it).


Covered that already.
It seems flash drive manufactures are taking advantage of people not looking at the conversion. I wish they would switch to base 2 also...

To meet 8GB a drive needs to be 7.45GiB, 7.2GiB falls short.
 
Who cares? I have enough Giga- or Gibi-whatevers for all my pron.
 
drives-15tb.jpg
 
e9461b75_Untitled.jpeg


supposed to be 20TB's and 10 TB's respectively

pretty sure im getting beat up with the 20 TB, windows thinks i lost an entire drive...:rolleyes:
 
pretty sure im getting beat up with the 20 TB, windows thinks i lost an entire drive...

Good thing that you did properties view so that you can see the windows bug.

I mean your properties shows 19.998 TB formatted and then windows calls it 18.1 TB when it should have called it 18.18 TiB.
 
Some of you are looking at the size of C: and D: but those are partitions on the disk and not the size of the drive.

Booted up a Parted Magic disk and ran GParted.

Intel 335 240GB SSD, formatted with GPT partition table on a UEFI motherboard, Windows 7 64-bit boot disk. Gparted reports the drive size as 223.57 GiB, which is 240.06 GB; the data partition is 223.35 GiB, the ESP (the UEFI System Partition) is 100.00 MiB, and the MSR (the Microsoft Reserved Partition) is 128.00 MiB. Win7's Computer control panel reports it as 223 GB (instead of GiB). Win7's Disk Management reports the main partition as 223.35 GB (instead of GiB), sees the ESP as a 100 MB partition (that is really 100 MiB) and does not see the 128 MiB MSR partition. If you right-click the drive in Win7's Disk Management, select Properties and click the Volumes tab, things get really confusing; in the top half of the window, it reports the Disk Capacity as 228809 MB, Unallocated space as 2MB and Reserved space as 100 MB, and in the bottom half of the window it reports the Volume Capacity as 228707 MB (note: 228707 + 2 + 100 = 228809). 228809 MiB = 223.45 GiB, and 223.57 GiB = 228935 MiB, so Win7's Disk Management is 126 MiB below Gparted; add that strange 2 MiB of unallocated space that it does see, and you have the 128 MiB MSR partition that Gparted sees and Win7 does not.

Moral of the story: don't ask Microsoft for accurate disk size info, especially on newfangled things like GPT.

Corsair Flash Voyager 32GB USB 3.0 flash USB stick, formatted with MBR partition table. Gparted reports the drive size as 29.89 GiB, which is 32.01 GB, with just one partition. Win7 Computer reports it as 29.8 GB (instead of GiB), Win7 Disk Management reports it as 29.89 GB (instead of GiB), and going to Properties->Volumes reports Disk Capacity as 30608 MB, Unallocated space as 0 MB, Reserved space as 0 MB, and in the bottom half of the window reports Volume Capacity as 30607 MB (where did the other MB go?). 30608 is 29.89 GiB, so at least it agrees with Gparted.

Sandisk Cruzer 16GB USB 2.0 flash USB stick, formatted with MBR partition table. Gparted reports the drive size as 14.90 GiB, which is 15.9988 GB with just one partition. Win7 Computer reports it as 14.8 GB (instead of GiB). Win7 Disk Management reports it as 14.90 GB (instead of GiB), and going to Properties->Volumes reports Disk Capacity as 15259 MB, Unallocated space as 1MB, and Reserved space as 0MB, while the bottom part of the window reports Volume Capacity as 15258 MB. 15259 MB is 14.90 GiB. Why does Win7 see unallocated space where Gparted does not?

unbranded piece of junk USB 2.0 flash USB stick that I thought was 64MB; formatted with MBR (Gparted calls it a loop partition table for some reason). Gparted reports the drive size as 61.97 MiB with just one partition, which is 64.98 MB (bonus extra MB!). Win7 Computer reports it as 61.7 MB (instead of MiB). Win7 Disk Management sees 62 MB, Properties->Volumes reports Disk Capacity as 62MB, Unallocated space as 0 MB, Reserved space as 0 MB, and the Volume Capacity as 61 MB. Again with the missing MB; it is becoming apparent that Disk Capacity rounds up and Volume Capacity rounds down.

So, of the three flash drives I looked at, they were all close enough to their advertised size to be rounding errors (though the third one had no advertised size at all).
 
Patriot Autobahn "8GB" usb 2.0 psf8glsabusb
Advertised 8GB (7.45GiB)
Actual 7.73GB (7.2GiB)

What exactly is saying that it's 7.73 GB (7.2 GiB), how is it formatted, and is it a boot disk of some sort? See my previous post.
 
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