120Gb Barracuda V not the same size as 120Gb Maxtor

[Egrimm]

Just installed my new 120Gb Seagate Barracuda V yesterday and noticed something strange: it's not the same size as my 120Gb Maxtor drives. I know that harddrive manufacturers don't list the real space of the hd (the 1000 and 1024 thing) but it isn't that.
Maxtor D540X 120Gb: 114.71Gb
Seagate Barracuda V 120Gb: 111.29
That's more than a 3Gb difference, not something that really means something to me but still strange.
Anybody has an explanation

 

[RSMemphis]

Hmm, strange.

Well, 111.29 * 1024^3 = 119.5 billion bytes, so that is close to 120GB claimed. (It should actually be 111.7 or so)
Apparently, Maxtor is giving more than promised... So, be happy!

 

[Egrimm]

I am, I just thought it was strange that they were different sizes, that's all.

 

[anomaly]

Where did you get your Barracuda V from?

 

[OulOat]

Sure you formatted them in the same style?

 

[dpm]

Man, that is odd. But I gave up worrying about how much space my drives actually have a while ago: You get how much space the manufacturers want to give you...

 

[Pariah]

Hard drive capacities are rounded off. Usually they are pretty close, but if the actual drive capacity is 122GB, they aren't going to put that on the box.

 

[CrashX]

Exactly.
One companies 120GB drive may actually be a 118GB and another's may be a 122GB. Depending on the platter sizes, aureal density and other things, means every companies drive will be a bit different.

 

[Woodchuck2000]

My IBM hard disk is 123.5 Gigabytes. In some places I've seen it advertised as 120, others as 123.5
As a percentage difference, it's largely irrelevant.

 

[Egrimm]

Originally posted by: anomaly
Where did you get your Barracuda V from?

A local shop, several shops here in Denmark have them in stock

Originally posted by: OulOat
Sure you formatted them in the same style?

The size difference is seen from the bios of my raid-controller and yes, they're both foramtted with NTFS too.

As I said several times I don't really care, just found it strange. As Pariah and CrashX said it must be due to different manufacturing techniques and platter sizes and making the number look nicer.

 

[thomsbrain]

if it's not a nice round number, people get confused and their hair falls out.

 

[Egrimm]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain
if it's not a nice round number, people get confused and their hair falls out.

Uhm no, I wasn't confused that it wasn't a nice round number and I didn't loose any hair either.
I know the 1000/1024 "problem", just found it fun that the drives that both are 120Gb on paper wouldn't have the same size after all.

The drives are quite different though so I guess it isn't that strange, the Maxtor use 40Gb platter and the Seagate 60Gb being the most obvious apart from manufacturer.