How come when I buy a 3tb drive I only get 2.72 tb? - Hardware & Software

I heard it's something to do with like, file conversion? But 300 gigs seems like kind of a lot, I mean I can buy entire harddrives that are that big. I'm not putting this in technical support because I don't need support, I was just wondering why harddrives did that.

It's the formatted capacity, the space is probably used by NTFS.

Whats NTFS? How come it takes up so much space?

~3000000000000 / (1024 ^ 3) ~= 2,793.96gb = 2.79tb [editline]10th December 2010[/editline] [QUOTE=Lust;26605879]Whats NTFS? How come it takes up so much space?[/QUOTE] He doesn't know what he's talking about.

Wait, so it's because it uses 1024 and not 1000? That's kinda weird, why don't they build them to divide down exactly into 3000 gb? And no, I don't know what I'm talking about, that's why I asked.

It's New Technology File System, it adds a partition table to the disk. Depending on the size of a 500gb hard drive, formatting it will make it lose 35gb, ending with 465gb.

That doesn't seem very likely, that must be a really big 'partition table'...

[QUOTE=Lust;26605924]Wait, so it's because it uses 1024 and not 1000? That's kinda weird, why don't they build them to divide down exactly into 3000 gb?[/QUOTE] Giga = 1000MB Gibi = 1024MB Hard drive manufacturers use the proper prefix. It's just confusing when everything else uses the now incorrect prefix because it used to be proper. For example if you had a 1GB HDD it would be 1,000,000,000 bytes. To convert it to the binary version of a gigabyte (gibibyte) (the one you're used to) you have to take the bytes and divide it by the binary equivalent. (1024 ^ 3 or 2 ^ 30). You'll get the difference. So 1,000,000,000 / (2 ^ 30) = 0.931322574615478515625. So for each GB you can take that off.

Oh ok, so it's just incorrect naming...That seems like false advertising, but kay :p

7% of the all storage space is used by the filesystem. How is this funny?

[QUOTE=Lust;26606002]Oh ok, so it's just incorrect naming...That seems like false advertising, but kay :p[/QUOTE] Technically it's proper naming and correct advertising.

[QUOTE=Panda X;26606078]Technically it's proper naming and correct advertising.[/QUOTE] But if all the other technology uses the incorrect naming shouldn't the advertisers really use it to avoid confusion? Ah this is digressing, nevermind, thanks for answering my question though.

If you have so big drive you shouldn't even notice the difference that small.

I heard mac shows 3tb as 3tb because it uses 1000 instead of 1024 but the actual size doesn't change, it's just a number

Anyone else notice how hard drives seem to double every advance? For instance, after developing a 500gb drive, a 1tb drive reached the masses. Then a 2tb, and so on. It doesn't follow it strictly, but every major advance seems to just be a double of the previous largest size. Totally off topic btw, nothing to do with where that "missing" space goes. :P

[QUOTE=Sumtoxx;26607237]Anyone else notice how hard drives seem to double every advance? For instance, after developing a 500gb drive, a 1tb drive reached the masses. Then a 2tb, and so on. It doesn't follow it strictly, but every major advance seems to just be a double of the previous largest size. Totally off topic btw, nothing to do with where that "missing" space goes. :P[/QUOTE] Could have to do with marketting or platter density; probably a bit of both, though. Doubling capacity is a big upgrade, 33% more isn't (to most people)

[QUOTE=Lust;26606103]But if all the other technology uses the incorrect naming shouldn't the advertisers really use it to avoid confusion? Ah this is digressing, nevermind, thanks for answering my question though.[/QUOTE] No, because it looks better to sell a 3tb hard drive as opposed to a 2.79tb hard drive

that and the pprice per gig is insanely low its like 56 cents per gig

[QUOTE=Sumtoxx;26607237]Anyone else notice how hard drives seem to double every advance? For instance, after developing a 500gb drive, a 1tb drive reached the masses. Then a 2tb, and so on. It doesn't follow it strictly, but every major advance seems to just be a double of the previous largest size. Totally off topic btw, nothing to do with where that "missing" space goes. :P[/QUOTE] I guess they're loosely following the size^2

[QUOTE=johan_sm;26608992]I guess they're loosely following the size^2[/QUOTE] What? 500^2 for the next one?

If you ordered it in Canada there is an exchange rate of data bytes.

where the fuck did you get a 3 TB drive I've never seen a single drive larger than 2 TB

[QUOTE=ButtsexV2;26610001]where the fuck did you get a 3 TB drive I've never seen a single drive larger than 2 TB[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136764&Tpk=3tb[/url] [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136749&cm_re=3tb-_-22-136-749-_-Product[/url] [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148580&cm_re=3tb-_-22-148-580-_-Product[/url]

You get like 2.72 Tibibytes don't you? [editline]11th December 2010[/editline] But no one ever says shit like that except on Wikipedia, even though it's supposed to be the standard. [editline]11th December 2010[/editline] [QUOTE=Sumtoxx;26607237]Anyone else notice how hard drives seem to double every advance? For instance, after developing a 500gb drive, a 1tb drive reached the masses. Then a 2tb, and so on. It doesn't follow it strictly, but every major advance seems to just be a double of the previous largest size. Totally off topic btw, nothing to do with where that "missing" space goes. :P[/QUOTE] If I had to guess as to why that was, it would be because of the way binary works and the way it converts into actual numbers. Every time you go up a binary you double the size. So 1 is 1. 10 is 2 100 is 4 1000 is 8 and so on, but it obviously goes into the really huge numbers.

It's normal, my 1TB only shows 931GB

I hate how the IEC retroactively renamed a standard that's been in place for 50+ years just to protect themselves from misinformed consumers suing them. It's kind of like that circlejerk called metrication that also fails miserably. 8 bits = byte, 1024 bytes = kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes, 1024 kilobytes = megabyte, etc. kibibyte, mibibyte, whatever sounds [i]absolutely[/i] retarded. If they wanted to protect themselves instead of fucking over a 50 year old system that worked fine, they should have changed to using megabits or gigabits for measuring hard drives. HERP LET'S CREATE IMAGINARY STANDARDS TO AVOID BEING SUED :downs: :downs: :downs:

Everyone saying it's down to the file system is partially correct. The main factor is the GB / GiB units used. The second factor is the filesystem reserving some blocks for journalising or MFT backups.