Western Digital Settlement

[drizzt81]

I don't think either analogy works. The bottom line is that the SI-prefix GIGA stands for 10^9. This was established in 1960 (according to Wiki). While someone had decided to call a Kilobyte, which should be 1000 Bytes to be equivalent to 2^10 = 1024 Bytes.

Now, all of us can argue about this issue until we are blue in the face or dead (whichever comes first). The bottom line is that neither is completely right or wrong. As pointed out here:
"Using the prefixes kilo-, mega-, giga-, etc., and their symbols K, M, G, etc. (see below for the peculiarities of "K"), in the binary sense can cause serious confusion." hence the movement to create a clear distinction. I really do not understand that now -when the IEEE has suggested that the Kibi- etc. prefixes are to be used- WD loses this lawsuit.

Also, when you open "My Computer" in WinXP and check the status of your HDD you can see that WD did not lie:

It says right there: >= 74 * 10^9 Bytes of capacity.

 

[mwarps]

I am wondering if this stems from attempting to use scientific notation for the mindless moronic masses. And I really think it does. I will never underestimate the depth of human stupidity and greed, and I don't mean by the corporations.

 

[Lazn_Work]

That's a horribly incorrect analogy.

Here is a better one.

GM decides to build fuel tanks for cars based on a standard of 1.5L = gallon.

You the consumer then go to fill up your vehicle at any number of various fuel stations, and it does not hold the amount of gallons that GM claims, because FUEL COMPANIES have already established that 2L = gallon.

It is not the responsibility of the consumer to discern the discrepencies between standards in every industry of product that they consume. These discrepencies either should not exist, or should be CLEARLY advertised to the customer.

The thing is that the value of K and G and all the other SI notation PREDATES COMPUTERS, and it is the HD MFG that use the actual values for SI notation. THEY USE THE CORRECT NUMBER.

Kilo is 1000, that is what it is. The fact that some dimwitted computer programmer was lazy and called 1024 Kilo, that does not make it true.

Kilo = 1000 before comptuers were in common use, and when you run a kilometer, you don't run 1024 meters.

==>Lazn

 

[Stellar]

WD loses this lawsuit.

Nobody won or lost.. it was settled out of court.

 

[drizzt81]

Nobody won or lost.. it was settled out of court.

Thanks for correcting me. In this case, since there has been no crappy precedent set... I will relax and leave this discussion

 

[matrix563]

i guess this is why they label their 150gig raptor as 150, when its really 160

 

[alexik01]

I don't understand why so many people get so emotional about this issue. To all you people who think you've been ripped off, you weren't. When you bought your HDD you compaired it to other HDDs, not to RAM prices or whatnot.
An industry standard in a capitalist market assures you get what you pay for. If they changed the convention, you'd just have to pay 10% more for a HDD with the "corrected" capacity. It's not a big deal.

 

[cburwell]

For a person that know a bit about computers it's easy to understand why an 80GB HD shows up as 74GB in Windows. It is a bit more difficult to explain that someone after you have installed a new hard drive and they see it is actually reading as 6GB less storage space then what it said in the box. That is were I see the big issue. As a computer enthusiast, if I need exactly 160GB of storage (and no less), then I just buy the next largest drive so that I have enough space for the present and the future.

 

[FLECOM]

this problem would go away if microsoft just changed it to powers of 10 instead of 2... i mean computers are so fast that the extra microsecond to do the math would not matter anymore...

it has nothign to do with Kb or KiB or whatever...

K = 1000 not 1024...

like the person that brought up MHz on processors...

when you turn your radio in your car to 93.1MHz that means that the frequency is 93.1 million cycles per second... sooo its at 93,100,000Hz... its all supposed to be base 10... not base 2...

 

[Crosshairs]

Sorry, i read it off the main [H] page.....


http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/14915237.htm


From the way i understand it Westerndigital had left out that warning up until recently so that is the reason for the lawsuit.....also Seagate is going through the same problem......i'd be happy if i gained a few extra gigs

your not going to "gain" a few extra gigs, and not to be an ass, but anyone who thinks a drive will format at its full capacity, really is pretty stupid.

This is possibly the dumbest lawsuit I have ever seen and more proof that you cant fix stupid.