2007.01.14
There should be a law...
OK, I'm usually wary of saying "there should be a law...", but in this case I'm really surprised that nothing has been passed to require a bit more truth in the advertising of device capacity. I shouldn't buy, for instance, an "80 GB" hard drive to discover that it's really 74 GB.
The definition of a gigabyte is 1,024 megabytes, which is 1,024 kilobytes, which is 1,024 bytes. If you're going to put "80 GB" on your box, what I think the thing need to contain is 80 * 1024^3 bytes.
Incidentally, when Samsung (I think it is) releases their terabyte drive later this year, if they view a terabyte as a trillion bytes (rather than 1 * 1024^4 bytes), you're getting robbed of about 70 GB (where G = 1 * 1024^3).
Posted by Luke at 5:38 p.m.
+1 damnt!!
Posted by mcoker on 2007.01.14 at 3:00 p.m.
I don't get how they calculate that stuff...
I have an "80 G" hard drive that only holds 74.5 G's...
and I have a "180 G" hard drive that holds 186 G's.
Is there not some sort of standard that the hard drive people go by?
Posted by Nathan on 2007.01.14 at 3:05 p.m.
The problem is that different numbering systems are used in different places. Computers use a base 1,024 system for calculating those prefixes, so a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, a megabyte is 1,024 kilobytes (or 1,048,576 bytes), while in a lot of advertising, a base 1,000 system is employed (so a megabyte can be claimed with 48,576 fewer bytes).
It's basically just a cheap tactic to advertise that your unit is bigger than it really is.
Posted by Luke on 2007.01.14 at 3:30 p.m.
@#$&*@(# ... trying really hard here..... biting tounge.... *@#(&$ ... going to implode.. @#$*(@)#
Posted by mcoker on 2007.01.15 at 2:34 a.m.
I know whose mind is in the gutter. :)
Posted by Luke on 2007.01.15 at 2:46 a.m.
Hehehehe. I know my unit's bigger than Nathan's.
Posted by Chris on 2007.01.19 at 6:48 p.m.
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