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!
.jpg "Why hard drives and memory card carries less space than promised")
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.
.JPG "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.
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.
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 Offered | Actual Space | Difference |
| 100GB | 93.13GB | 6.87GB |
| 250GB | 232.83GB | 17.17GB |
| 500GB | 465.66GB | 34.34GB |
| 1TB | 931.32GB | 92.68GB |
| 2TB | 1862.64GB | 185.36GB |
