Why are my two 4 TB drives not the same size ?

[pcslookout]

Anyway to fix this ?

They are supposedly formatted the same way.



One is internal the other is external (It is for my backup)

They use to be the same size exactly before I RMAed one of them.

 

[Charlie22911]

It would help to know more about the two drives.

 

[hojnikb]

It's pretty common for drives to not actually be exact same size, even though they are marketed as such. That is especially evident with usb flash drives.Just stop being anal about it.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Check them with CrystalDiskInfo - are they different model numbers? Then it's normal for there to be some variation.

 

[Charlie22911]

Even within the same model range they can have different sizes, especially if they’ve been in an enclosure. Some of them create a host protected area that can only be removed with special tools.

 

[mxnerd]

The one with less storage probably is the one with some bad sectors and marked as such. (refurbished one)

 

[UsandThem]

Fixed the title for you to make it sound
a little less like a Craigslist personals ad.

AT Mod Usandthem

 

[BarkingGhostar]

It is probably the way the external drive is formatted so the product itself can be used on systems so old that they couldn't/wouldn't recognize disks of that size.

 

[13Gigatons]

The REAL question is why are they not really 4TB?

 

[corkyg]

The REAL question is why are they not really 4TB?

This question has been asked repeatedly for years. This passage explains it:

"...Since consumers don't think in base 2 mathematics, manufacturers decided to rate most drive capacities based on the standard base 10 numbers we are all familiar with. Therefore, one gigabyte equals one billion bytes, while one terabyte equals one trillion bytes. This approximation was not much of a problem back when we used the kilobyte, but each level of increase in the prefix also increases the total discrepancy of the actual space compared to the advertised space.

"Here is a quick reference to show the amount that the actual values differ compared to the advertised for each common referenced value:
Megabyte difference = 48,576 bytes
Gigabyte difference = 73,741,824 bytes
Terabyte difference = 99,511,627,776 bytes

"Based on this, for each gigabyte that a drive manufacturer claims, it is over-reporting the amount of disk space by 73,741,824 bytes or roughly 70.3 MB of disk space. So, if a manufacturer advertises an 80 GB (80 billion bytes) hard drive, the actual disk space is around 74.5 GB of space, roughly 7 percent less than what is advertised. ..."

 

[Charlie22911]

This question has been asked repeatedly for years. This passage explains it:

"...Since consumers don't think in base 2 mathematics, manufacturers decided to rate most drive capacities based on the standard base 10 numbers we are all familiar with. Therefore, one gigabyte equals one billion bytes, while one terabyte equals one trillion bytes. This approximation was not much of a problem back when we used the kilobyte, but each level of increase in the prefix also increases the total discrepancy of the actual space compared to the advertised space.

"Here is a quick reference to show the amount that the actual values differ compared to the advertised for each common referenced value:
Megabyte difference = 48,576 bytes
Gigabyte difference = 73,741,824 bytes
Terabyte difference = 99,511,627,776 bytes

"Based on this, for each gigabyte that a drive manufacturer claims, it is over-reporting the amount of disk space by 73,741,824 bytes or roughly 70.3 MB of disk space. So, if a manufacturer advertises an 80 GB (80 billion bytes) hard drive, the actual disk space is around 74.5 GB of space, roughly 7 percent less than what is advertised. ..."

This. TB != TiB.

I wish the industry would just settle on base 2 already.

 

[13Gigatons]

It would be fine if they advertised it as 4.3TB and then under it as 4.0TiB formatted in smaller letters.
8.6 TB (8.0TiB formatted)

At least then you would know exactly what you were getting.

 

[pcslookout]

Finally fixed it!

For some odd reasons both drives weren't formatted the same way or something. I don't know. Just glad I fixed it. I knew there was something wrong.