4 TB HDD Showing Less

[harobikes333]

I recently picked up a Seagate Backup Plus 4 TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive STCA4000100

I'm running Windows Vista 64 and this is what I found:


For a 4TB HDD.. is 3.63TB normal ? ... I know for example 1TB HDDs you get ~GB930

Also... I don't how it shows that 5.49 GB is USED ? I explored the drive and only found this:


I believe you need space for a journal, etc..? but seems excessive? I dunno


Bestow your wisdom upon me!

 

[rsutoratosu]

Format the drive and see what you get

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yep, because a 4TB drive is not actually 4TB. It is 4,000,000,000,000 bytes.

4TB is actually 1024*1024*1024*1024*4 bytes. 1KB = 1024B, 1MB = 1024KB etc...

So if you take 4,000,000,000,000/1024/1024/1024/1024 you get... 3.64TB. It's not because of the formatting. You don't loose 100's of GB when you format.

With 10GB drives it was not a huge deal but now that drives are bigger we are loosing out 100's of GB because of this bad advertising. Their reasoning is that it actually IS 4TB... on the standard metric system. But hard disk space does not use the 1000 based metric system but 1024.

 

[BFG10K]

This is normal because of the base 2 to base 10 conversion. Because it's based on a percentage, you'll "lose" more and more as the capacity increases.

Well you're not losing anything really, but the discrepancy becomes higher.

 

[Hellhammer]

Yep, because a 4TB drive is not actually 4TB. It is 4,000,000,000,000 bytes.

4TB is actually 1024*1024*1024*1024*4 bytes. 1KB = 1024B, 1MB = 1024KB etc...

So if you take 4,000,000,000,000/1024/1024/1024/1024 you get... 3.64TB. It's not because of the formatting. You don't loose 100's of GB when you format.

With 10GB drives it was not a huge deal but now that drives are bigger we are loosing out 100's of GB because of this bad advertising. Their reasoning is that it actually IS 4TB... on the standard metric system. But hard disk space does not use the 1000 based metric system but 1024.

I'm of the opinion that it's Microsoft who should either use the GB correctly (1000^3 bytes) or if they want to keep using base 2 then use GiB (Gibibyte - 1024^3 bytes). It's really inconvenient that GB can have two different definitions, even though there is an alternative.

 

[lagokc]

I'm of the opinion that it's Microsoft who should either use the GB correctly (1000^3 bytes) or if they want to keep using base 2 then use GiB (Gibibyte - 1024^3 bytes). It's really inconvenient that GB can have two different definitions, even though there is an alternative.

In this case it's actually Microsoft that's right, the hardware manufacturers are being dishonest to make their drives seem bigger.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah it's kinda the fault of both in a way. MiB is actually the proper term for a real MB but MB is used by MS and most other OSes as meaning the base 1024 so that's what everyone is used to and accustomed to. Drive manufacturers take advantage of this and use the "proper" way when everyone is used to MB really meaning MiB. Really in computer terms the base 1000 has no use for storage because it's just not what's used, so the drive manufacturers should just use the format everyone is used to. Linux actually uses both, depends what program you're looking at lol. The industry needs to just agree to a standard and use only that standard, would make things much simpler for everybody.

 

[mikeymikec]

Work right back from the start. A bit is a 1 or a 0. 8 bits to a byte, equalling a single character to be stored in a file.

Storage manufacturers wanted to redefine the units to suit their own purposes. That's where the complication arose from. They're the ones who ought to change the behaviour because the normal system (1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte) is the only one that makes any sense.

It reminds me of how CRT makers would label a television or monitor as a 19" one, and include the size of the frame around the screen in the measurement. Thankfully when LCDs came along it was decided that the bit to be measured was actually the usable screen area.

 

[corkyg]

The label of 4TB is purely marketing - they have always rounded up to the nearest integer. This has been going on ever since my first HDD (a 20MB hardcard!) back in 1985. I'm surprised that this is n ot common knowledge. Microsoft is accurately reading the drive.

 

[R0H1T]

At this rate we'll get a 9TB drive for the price of a 10TB one, someone should bring in a class action lawsuit to stop this skimming !

 

[tweakboy]

This is nothing knew,, came for old Dos Days.....

 

[Hellhammer]

In this case it's actually Microsoft that's right, the hardware manufacturers are being dishonest to make their drives seem bigger.

Well, the real issue behind this is the fact that someone (aka IEC) decided that 1000 and 1024 are "close enough" so lets call 1024^3 a Gigabyte as well. The SI system existed way before computers were invented, hence "the real Giga" will always be 1000^3 in my opinion.

OS X and Linux (at least my distro) use base 10 nowadays, so Microsoft is the only one lagging behind. This will only get more confusing as we move to bigger capacities since we are dealing with powers. 1024^3 is 7.4% more than 1000^3 but 1024^4 is 10% more than 1000^4.

 

[TheStu]

At this rate we'll get a 9TB drive for the price of a 10TB one, someone should bring in a class action lawsuit to stop this skimming !

You'll be getting a 9.3TiB drive for the price of a 10TB drive, which is correct.

It's not skimming, it's a number system mismatch. Computers use Base-2 (binary), and the average human is used to thinking in terms of Base-10 (decimal). Do I kind of wish that the manufacturers had just labelled and marketed their drives properly from the very beginning? Of course. But I also wish that people would stop thinking that $19.99 as a MUCH better price than $20.00 (they do though, there have been studies)

Well, the real issue behind this is the fact that someone (aka IEC) decided that 1000 and 1024 are "close enough" so lets call 1024^3 a Gigabyte as well. The SI system existed way before computers were invented, hence "the real Giga" will always be 1000^3 in my opinion.

OS X and Linux (at least my distro) use base 10 nowadays, so Microsoft is the only one lagging behind.

When OS X switched over to base-10 I remember there was a bit of a lag before various apps (iStat Menus comes to mind) when they were still reporting base-2 values, so there was some discrepancy.

 

[Hellhammer]

When OS X switched over to base-10 I remember there was a bit of a lag before various apps (iStat Menus comes to mind) when they were still reporting base-2 values, so there was some discrepancy.

Yeah, that's true. I've come across a couple of apps that still report base-2 values but it's possible that they are just so old and haven't been updated after the switch.

 

[R0H1T]

You'll be getting a 9.3TiB drive for the price of a 10TB drive, which is correct.

Actually you'll be getting ~9.08TB not 9.3TB.

It's not skimming, it's a number system mismatch. Computers use Base-2 (binary), and the average human is used to thinking in terms of Base-10 (decimal). Do I kind of wish that the manufacturers had just labelled and marketed their drives properly from the very beginning? Of course. But I also wish that people would stop thinking that $19.99 as a MUCH better price than $20.00 (they do though, there have been studies)

That was just a tongue in cheek comment

When OS X switched over to base-10 I remember there was a bit of a lag before various apps (iStat Menus comes to mind) when they were still reporting base-2 values, so there was some discrepancy.

I would still choose the binary system over decimal because the latter will cause lots of other problems !

 

[tweakboy]

Were talkin 9TB omg, how much porn and dirty pictures and videos you got ?

 

[corkyg]

Definitely not skimming - what is needed are better educated consumers. A thread that accurately defines how drives are actually measure vs. marketed should be a sticky so we don't keep repeating this same discussion ad infinitum.

 

[lord_emperor]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

The manufacturer is stating the correct capacity. In fact they have over-delivered per the screenshot with a capacity of 4,000,770,420,736 bytes.

Microsoft insists on stubbornly misrepresenting drive capacity and file size, while other OS'es use the proper terminology:

http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.6-rc2-dolphin.png

 

[Phynaz]

This has been going on ever since my first HDD (a 20MB hardcard!) back in 1985.

Did you have the real Hardcard and not one of the knock-offs? Man those things were expensive - but oh so cool.

 

[corkyg]

Did you have the real Hardcard and not one of the knock-offs? Man those things were expensive - but oh so cool.

The real McCoy. Back then, I didn't know what to do with all that real estate. The first HC was 10MB as I recall. I had this in a 8086 machine by Leading Edge.

 

[Phynaz]

You had a Model D if I remember them right (I sold them). They had both monochrome and color video on the motherboard and you flipped a switch to choose one. Does that sound right?

 

[AdamK47]

There should be a sticky explaining base 2 and base 10 gigabyte values. This topic comes up waaaayyyy too often.

Now that I think about it, wasn't there one posted here before?

 

[Atreidin]

I hate using GiB, it sounds retarded. Also, the only reason hard drive manufacturers switched to base 10 is the first place isn't because of some altruistic adherence to "the one true standard", it was for deceptive marketing reasons. "Hey, we're the first to make a consumer 1GB hard drive! (By the way, we've redefined GB, hard drive, make, and first)."

 

[TheStu]

I hate using GiB, it sounds retarded. Also, the only reason hard drive manufacturers switched to base 10 is the first place isn't because of some altruistic adherence to "the one true standard", it was for deceptive marketing reasons. "Hey, we're the first to make a consumer 1GB hard drive! (By the way, we've redefined GB, hard drive, make, and first)."

They never 'redefined' GB. G is an SI prefix that means 10^9. That is all that it can mean. GB can only mean 1000 MB which can only mean 1000 KB which can only mean 1000 B. No one was sold a bill of goods. If you want to blame anyone, blame whoever it was that decided to use the SI prefixes to stand-in for proper ones in a base-2 environment. If, from day one, people just got used to saying things like gibibyte and tebibyte, then we wouldn't have this issue. The majority of people (at least in the US, I can't speak for other countries) don't use SI prefixes on most things. The only time it ever comes up is with computers. They could have nipped this in the bud from day one.

If there are any non-US people here, do folks in other countries say 'megameter' or 1000 km?

 

[Hellhammer]

They never 'redefined' GB. G is an SI prefix that means 10^9. That is all that it can mean. GB can only mean 1000 MB which can only mean 1000 KB which can only mean 1000 B. No one was sold a bill of goods. If you want to blame anyone, blame whoever it was that decided to use the SI prefixes to stand-in for proper ones in a base-2 environment. If, from day one, people just got used to saying things like gibibyte and tebibyte, then we wouldn't have this issue. The majority of people (at least in the US, I can't speak for other countries) don't use SI prefixes on most things. The only time it ever comes up is with computers. They could have nipped this in the bud from day one.

If there are any non-US people here, do folks in other countries say 'megameter' or 1000 km?

In spoken language things pretty much top out at the Kilo prefix (kilogram, kilometer etc.). Then again, it's rare that you're even dealing with numbers where the Mega (or bigger) prefix makes sense.

However, in physics all prefixes (including Giga, Tera, Nano, Piko...) are used frequently.