Rant about Hard Drives

johnhu_2005 · 05-11-09, 05:15 PM

I just bought a new hard drive to run as a backup drive that can be filled with drive images. Here is the 750GB drive I bought from Newegg. I knew all HD manufactures use the 1 MB= 1000KB (Should be 1MB=1024KB) , to clip us off the few valuable GB.

I forgot to calculate how much GB I was robbed of before I bought it. Got everything plugged in and Windows 7 found it as 698GB. I was like huh? So I went back and used the calculator to figure it out. Much to my dismay, it was 698GB. Western Digital Robbed me of 52 GBs!

So, basically, the bigger the drive, the more is "stolen"... I remember somebody filed a lawsuit regarding this, I hope the person wins... :approve:

Box · 05-11-09, 05:23 PM

I'm not going to bother using a calculator to work out if you are right, but usually western digital also put a bunch of crap on their drives, backup software etc and a few bits an pieces.
You might gain some more by reformatting the drive.

johnhu_2005 · 05-11-09, 05:31 PM

Tried reformatting with NTFS and exFAT, no change.
I know not to change the Allocation Table size from default as that slows down the drive. HDTach can prove it.

Western Digital used to put "stuff" on there drives, much like Sandisk. But I got OEM version (Retail is just a pretty box with extra cables), so no crap for me.

But, not much I can do except sulk that I got ripped off 52 GB. (My older WD was advertised 500GB with 465GB true size. Got ripped off 35 GB. A little bit less than 52.)

Box · 05-11-09, 05:41 PM

Sorry but I have a much more serious issue to deal with.
The bloody barmaid in this pub keeps giving me pints with 1 inch of foam below the top af the glass.
At 4 Euros a pint that is a serious problem.
I'll just have to keep drinking them until she gets it right.

johnhu_2005 · 05-11-09, 06:29 PM

Wow Box, that is a bigger problem than mine. Guess it will cost you an extra 5 bucks (4 euros) or so... Never drank at a pub before, I'll settle for my Coors lite. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about the bloody barmaid...

If I ever go to Europe, I will find you *ahem* hunt you down *ahem* and go to a pub.

Box · 05-11-09, 06:42 PM

I suspect that might have to wait a year or two, mind you having said that, the actual legal drinking age for Beer over here is 16.
Can you imagine the reaction when Europeans go to the states and can't get a drink and the horrible state that young Americans get into over here.
Look me up if you are ever heading this way.

johnhu_2005 · 05-11-09, 07:29 PM

Less than a year left!

Remind me next year to go to Europe.

spunker88 · 05-12-09, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by johnhu_2005

So, basically, the bigger the drive, the more is "stolen"... I remember somebody filed a lawsuit regarding this, I hope the person wins... :approve:

Im not sure how that will go over, since they have always advertised HDs that way, but as we get bigger HDs more space is getting taken away so numbers are more deceiving.

We used to only lose MBs now we lose GBs, and lots of them.

If they won the lawsuit a good rule would be to make HD manufacturers state the formatted capacity right next to the unformatted capacity, and make sellers put it with the description too.

For Example:

Old Way
Western Digital 750GB Hard Drive

New Way
Western Digital 750GB (698GB Formatted) Hard Drive

**breley** · 05-12-09, 05:50 PM

Some of that I think is capacity nomenclature:

Per wikipedia:

Quote:

Most operating-system tools report capacity using the same abbreviations but actually use binary prefixes. For instance, the prefix mega-, which normally means 106 (1,000,000), in the context of data storage can mean 220 (1,048,576), which is nearly 5% more. Similar usage has been applied to prefixes of greater magnitude. This results in a discrepancy between the disk manufacturer's stated capacity and the apparent capacity of the drive when examined through most operating-system tools. The difference becomes even more noticeable for a gigabyte (7%), and again for a terabyte (9%). For a petabyte there is a 11% difference between the SI (10005) and binary (10245) definitions. For example, Microsoft Windows reports disk capacity both in a decimal integer to 12 or more digits and with binary-based units to three significant digits. Thus a disk specified by a disk manufacturer as a 30 GB disk might have its capacity reported by Windows 2000 both as "30,065,098,568 bytes" and "28.0 GB". The disk manufacturer used the SI definition of "giga", 109 to arrive at 30 GB; however, because Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and some Linux distributions use "gigabyte" for 1,073,741,824 bytes (230 bytes), the operating system reports capacity of the disk drive as (only) 28.0 GB.

So if there's a 7% difference is Gigabyte capacity, a 750GB drive might be reported by the OS as only having 698GB (750-(750 x 7%))

While we're on the subject, JAM software has a nice freeware tool called Treesize for examining drive capacity and what files are taking up space where. There's also a mobile (beta) version too.

johnhu_2005 · 05-12-09, 05:54 PM

I concur with Spunker. Then again, if anybody wants to start a lawsuit, be my guest.

Box · 05-12-09, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by breley

Some of that I think is capacity no menclature:

As Breley quite clearly points out, it's the women's fault.

spunker88 · 05-13-09, 07:31 AM

Originally Posted by johnhu_2005

I concur with Spunker. Then again, if anybody wants to start a lawsuit, be my guest.

I dont want to start a lawsuit, but i think somebody may challenge this as HDs keep getting bigger. I mean most of us are tech savy and know about the reduced space after formatting, but there are many who dont. And as external HDs get cheaper/more popular more newbies will be buying them. If somebody who had no idea about what formatting does to HDs bought that HD and discovered over 50GB missing theyd be pretty mad. Heck, even somebody who knows like yourself is mad.

We either have to come up with a way to format HDs to use all 100% or else its almost like false advertising.

CodeBubba · 05-13-09, 08:55 AM

You know ... I used to get all frothed-up about this kind of thing. Sooner or later you just realize that's the way it is: formatting simply requires space. 50GB on a 750GB volume does sound a little pricey, yeah ... but OTOH these hard drives have gotten to be so friggin' large that [to me at least] it just doesn't matter any more. Unless you're doing a ton of video or something that kind of space is larger than you're likely to use any time soon.

I just replaced an 80GB external drive on my system at the house with a 640GB unit - backed up all four of my systems there and barely made a dent in it.

I come from the days before there WERE hard drives in PC's you understand. My first hard drive was a 10MB Rodime - to me that was ACRES of space. I developed a LOT of code on that old IBM PC.

-CB :D

**radimus** · 05-13-09, 12:01 PM

I bought a 1.5tb hd for my HTPC, guess how much space it really has...

**breley** · 05-13-09, 12:16 PM

1.365 terabytes?