Why hard drive and memory card carries less space than promised?


Have you ever questioned why computers invariably indicate that your hard drive or memory card encompasses a smaller storage capability than what’s publicized on the box? It's not because you bought a defective card or hard drive, it’s not because of your card came preloaded with a bunch of unwanted files and it’s not as a result of the makers are cheating you by skimping out on the cupboard space. The answer is that they are not marketing it falsely at all. Lets tak a closure look on this issue!
Why hard drives and memory card carries less space than promised

Secretes behind the scenes!
Basically the manufacturer considers 1 Megabyte to be 1000 Kilobytes, 1 Gigabyte to be 1000 Megabytes, 1 Terabyte to be 1000 Gigabytes and so on. This is correct considering that kilo means 1000 and mega means 1000000 (10^6). However, computers calculate on base 2 and to them, 1 MB is actually 1024 kilobytes, 1GB is 1024MB and 1 TB is 1024GB. This difference in the method of computation is responsible for this "missing space".

Lets take an example with 1 TB space,

From a manufacturer's point of view, the 1 TB will have 1000*1000*1000*1000 =1000000000000 bytes.
From a computer's point of view, 1 TB is actually 1024*1024*1024*1024 = 1099511627776 bytes.

Why hard drives and memory card carries less space than promised



So, a hard drive that promises to have 1 TB storage space will actually display 931.32 GB, 1099511627776-1000000000000 = 99511627776 bytes (92.68 GB) less storage space when connected to a computer.

Space OfferedActual SpaceDifference
100GB93.13GB6.87GB
250GB232.83GB17.17GB
500GB465.66GB34.34GB
1TB931.32GB92.68GB
2TB1862.64GB185.36GB


Link your website with us for free!



author

About Author

I’m Vinay Vernekar , a young Entrepreneur and a Technology blogger, currently living in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India. Founder and Main author of Fun With Tricks. I am also running web hosting services at Host With Us and King Of Web Host. if you like this article, pin it with social media, subscribe to our newsletter. Follow me on Google Plus, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.

Know more about me!

Mail me your quries at admin@funwithtricks.com

Get Free Email Updates to your Inbox!