Maxtor drive can only recognize 279Gig out of 300gig

[khicon]

I have Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive as the title have said.. it can only recognize 279Gig out of 300gig drive. Why is that? 21gig is a lot to lose... I dont' mine 5 or 10 but 21? There must be something wrong... I plug the sata in port 4 and my 2 other drives are in port 1 and 2. Please give me an explaination. Thank you.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Is that 300 listed in 1,000,000 byte megabytes?

 

[khicon]

Thanks.. I've found my own Question.

The short answer: Harddrive companies lie.

The long answer: In windows, linux, and computers in general, 1 gb = 1024*1024*1024 = 1073741824 bytes. So, 300.0 gb = 322122547200 bytes. However, to harddrive manufacturers, 1gb = 1000*1000*1000 = 1000000000 bytes. So 300 gb = 300000000000 bytes.

If we do a conversion from their "gb" to real gb, we would take the advertised size * 1000000000 / 1073741824.

So, 300 * 1000000000 / 1073741824 = 279.39.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Manufacturers define a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes. Some operating systems use the binarynumbering system which results in a lower reported capacity.

 

[khicon]

that suck then... 300 became 279 ... sigh

 

[n0cmonkey]

It is 300, if you use "creative math".

 

[bersl2]

Actually, 300GB is correct.

It's just that it's ~279GiB.

The confusion has been officially resolved with the introduction of SI binary prefixes. The hard part is getting individuals and organizations to use them.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: bersl2
Actually, 300GB is correct.

It's just that it's ~279GiB.

Don't confuse him.

Just because someone came along way too late and said that we're going to stop using binary on computers doesn't make a bit of difference. It isn't 300 Gigabytes, no matter what some "governing body" says, just look at the output in the OS.

 

[Jeff7]

Until OS writers update their software to reflect the corrected SI definitions.

 

[CTho9305]

GiB and MiB are the units of geeks who want to feel like they are better than everyone else because they have their own words that only they understand. It's not like the ordinary consumer is going to understand suddenly how GiB is different - they'll still buy a 500GB disk and expect 500*2^30 bytes.

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
GiB and MiB are the units of geeks who want to feel like they are better than everyone else because they have their own words that only they understand. It's not like the ordinary consumer is going to understand suddenly how GiB is different - they'll still buy a 500GB disk and expect 500*2^30 bytes.

In science and engineering, precision is important. From the page to which I linked earlier:

Once upon a time, computer professionals noticed that 2^10 was very nearly equal to 1000 and started using the SI prefix "kilo" to mean 1024. That worked well enough for a decade or two because everybody who talked kilobytes knew that the term implied 1024 bytes. But, almost overnight a much more numerous "everybody" bought computers, and the trade computer professionals needed to talk to physicists and engineers and even to ordinary people, most of whom know that a kilometer is 1000 meters and a kilogram is 1000 grams.

Then data storage for gigabytes, and even terabytes, became practical, and the storage devices were not constructed on binary trees, which meant that, for many practical purposes, binary arithmetic was less convenient than decimal arithmetic. The result is that today "everybody" does not "know" what a megabyte is. When discussing computer memory, most manufacturers use megabyte to mean 2^20 = 1 048 576 bytes, but the manufacturers of computer storage devices usually use the term to mean 1 000 000 bytes. Some designers of local area networks have used megabit per second to mean 1 048 576 bit/s, but all telecommunications engineers use it to mean 10^6 bit/s. And if two definitions of the megabyte are not enough, a third megabyte of 1 024 000 bytes is the megabyte used to format the familiar 90 mm (3 1/2 inch), "1.44 MB" diskette. The confusion is real, as is the potential for incompatibility in standards and in implemented systems.

Look, the standards bodies are not comprised of just a bunch of geeks. Would you call the IEC or the IEEE "just a bunch of geeks"?