Less storage space as bought

[Cordicool]

I bought a lenovo 513 GB but the window shows 475GB. Both used space and available space total 475GB. Is this normal?

 

[AUnlikelyPotatoe]

I don't know a lot about storage, but I think it's just windows, IE, stuff like that.

 

[weberdarren97]

Considering formatting, hidden partitions (for recovery) that are not included in the totals within the operating system, and system reserved partitions, this seems right.

 

[weberdarren97]

I don't know a lot about storage, but I think it's just windows, IE, stuff like that.

Windows includes its own files (even those without extensions) when calculating total, used and free space.

 

[photonboy]

Yes, it's normal.
The actual explanation is quite confusing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7tps8364ag

 

[weberdarren97]

Yes, it's normal.
The actual explanation is quite confusing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7tps8364ag

1GB (Gigabyte written on hard drives) is often 1,000,000,000 bytes. 1GiB (Gibibyte measured in Windows) is often 1,073,741,824 bytes. That means that 1GB is 0.931322574615478515625Gib. A less than 7% difference. While it's a factor in his "issue", it doesn't account for the entire 38GB that's "missing". There are still 3GB that are unaccounted for. Hidden partitions must be playing a role as well.

 

[R4DIO4CT1VE]

Yeah its normal

 

[weberdarren97]

@Cordicool, there is nothing wrong with your device. Hidden partitions are used by BIOS and are necessary in case you would need to perform a full reset. GB vs GiB is something that we just have to deal with.

 

[ss202sl]

From a company that makes storage.
This is what you're seeing:
http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/MX100-512-GB-Only-476-GB-in-Windows/td-p/152744

And this is why:
http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/Why-does-my-SSD-show-up-as-smaller-than-advertised/ta-p/129368

 

[boosted1g]

Yes it is normal, as weberdarren was stating that hard drives use a bit of deceptive marketing.

In actual binary terms (and the way Windows measures GB) is that 1024 Bytes = 1KB, 1024 KB = 1MB, 1024MB = 1GB. Thus 1 REAL gigabyte = 1,073,741,824 Bytes.
Whle hard drives call 1billion bytes to be 1GB.

So 475GB equals 510GB. The other 3GB is lost due to partition tables, system reserve partition and other hidden items, plus your computer may have a recovery partition as well.

If you feel like you are getting jipped by your 35 missing GB, then you should see large disk setups. I have "11TB" worth of hard drives pooled together on my NAS/Server and my real space is entire TB less.

 

[cryoburner]

Yes it is normal, as weberdarren was stating that hard drives use a bit of deceptive marketing.

In actual binary terms (and the way Windows measures GB) is that 1024 Bytes = 1KB, 1024 KB = 1MB, 1024MB = 1GB. Thus 1 REAL gigabyte = 1,073,741,824 Bytes.
Whle hard drives call 1billion bytes to be 1GB.

Technically, hard drive manufacturers are not being "deceptive" at all. They've been using standard metric naming conventions, where a gigabyte should logically equal 1,000,000,000 bytes. It's the designers of operating systems who misused those prefixes, deciding decades ago that 1024 bytes was "close enough" to 1000 to refer to it as a kilobyte. While that only made a 2.4% difference at the "kilo" level though, it becomes a 7.4% difference at the "giga" level, and a 10% difference at the "tera" level. That's why newer binary prefixes were introduced to be used for those numbers, including kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi and so on. So, technically, the operating system should be reporting that you have 475 gibibytes (GiB) of storage available, and if were properly reporting gigabytes (GB), it would list the number as being much closer to your drive's stated capacity. It's the software not following standards, not the hard drive.

That being said, the newer naming convention of mebibytes, gibibytes and tebibytes does not exactly flow off the tongue particularly well, and many have become used to the "incorrect" prefixes, so they'll likely remain in use for quite some time.

 

[boosted1g]

Technically, hard drive manufacturers are not being "deceptive" at all. They've been using standard metric naming conventions, where a gigabyte should logically equal 1,000,000,000 bytes. It's the designers of operating systems who misused those prefixes, deciding decades ago that 1024 bytes was "close enough" to 1000 to refer to it as a kilobyte. While that only made a 2.4% difference at the "kilo" level though, it becomes a 7.4% difference at the "giga" level, and a 10% difference at the "tera" level. That's why newer binary prefixes were introduced to be used for those numbers, including kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi and so on. So, technically, the operating system should be reporting that you have 475 gibibytes (GiB) of storage available, and if were properly reporting gigabytes (GB), it would list the number as being much closer to your drive's stated capacity. It's the software not following standards, not the hard drive.

That being said, the newer naming convention of mebibytes, gibibytes and tebibytes does not exactly flow off the tongue particularly well, and many have become used to the "incorrect" prefixes, so they'll likely remain in use for quite some time.

Good point, looking at that way its not the hard drive OEMs fault that windows uses the incorrect term.
Granted they are not going out of their way to clarify it (only in very small print on the back of the box or page 6 of the mcro sized manual).

It is naturally logical for a computing machine to use binary (power of 2) bassed numbering system over a metric (power of 10) based system, but yeah windows just chose to not follow the standard. Windows/Microsoft not following a standard.... that never happens!