*not* a dumb question: my 120GB HD reads as having 111GB

[impostal22]

i know that because the way bits work that a 120GB hd doesn't actually have a 120GB capacity. i'm just curious if a 9GB difference is normal for 120's. if not, then what gives? if so, just say so and i'll be satisfied .

oh...and what's the normal real capacity of a 200GB hard drive?

[FalconGuy016]

Some of the hardrive is used in the formatting

[Jet-Xino]

Completely normal. Out of my 80 GB get hardrive I only get about 74.5 GB and only about 27.5 out of my 30 GB . So 111 GB sounds about right.

[digitard]

A partition takes up roughly 5% of a drive normally. So if you have a 100gb drive you normally get about 95 give or take. Its not an even 5%, but its pretty close. It saves it for all the data structure/etc. Think of it like a place for the drives TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dave

[impostal22]

sorry..it looks like i answered my own question with a little research. 111GB is normal, because:

(10^9/2^30)*(Stated Hard Drive Space)= Actual HD Space

plug 120 in for Stated HD Space, and you get 111.

the significance of 10^9 is that it's the decimal value of a gigabyte, while 2^30 is the binary value of a gigabyte.

sorry i answered my own question, but now those who didn't know can know the conversion formula.

edit- and i was right (obviously), it's because of the way bits work (base 2 math rather than base 10).

[Dryden]

Sounds right to me. I've got a 120Gb second drive in my PC:

$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hdb1            115377640 108773832    742896 100% /mp3

115377640 / 1024^2 = 110.03269 Gb

Hmm, 742Kb free ... looks like it's time for a new drive.

[fire1811]

here is your answer

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....ted=1034613413>

[fire1811]

and a 200gb drive is actually 186gb

[virus]

lol... i love things like this...

1 meg is 1024kb

most hd makers use

1 meg is 1000kb to make it eaiser on "tech-challanged"

Western Digital, to my knowldge is still the only company
that uses the 1024kb as 1 meg listing and that is usally why their drives cost a little more that every other hd out there...

when they say it is a 100gig drive it is a true 100gig (or any other size for that matter)

to help make more sence... look at ram.... i have a 1/2 gig on my comp.... ie 512megs... not 500megs

[Benfica4ever]

Mine has 120 but it says 111 too...so no problem