Why is it when you by a HDD that states one capacity that after formatting it in either Windows or Linux you lose GBs of space? Is is possible to reclaim that space?
- Manufacturers use decimal SI units (Base 10) for calculation
Giga = 10^9 = 1.000.000.000Computers calculate in Binary (Base 2)
Giga = 2^30 = 1024^3 = 1.073.741.824Even if manufacturers would use Binary calculation and state the Hard Drive space as e.g. 465,66GiB (raw unformatted space) the actual space available for the user is still lower depending on the Partition Format (MBR, GPT, ...) and the used File System (FAT32, NTFS, HFS...).When using GPT for example the system will create a 100MB or 200MB hidden partition. This is not much compared to the total space but people still notice it. - Both the contributors above make valid points, but there are really two separate issues.First is that hard disc manufacturers quote the capacity of their decimally, wehre kilo=1,000 (and mega=1,000 kilo etc), whereas operating systems usually use the 'binary standard', where kilo=1024 etc. On large modern hard disc this can amount to quite a difference.Secondly, formatting discs involves creating a filesystem - a way of organising the files and folders on the disc (a bit like having table of contents, page numbers and indexes in a book), and this uses up some space. Depending on the filesystem, the amount of space can be considerable (in FAT12, of to bad old DOS days, it was 1/3 of the total space!).On the other hand, if you enable compression on your drive you will have more space than the stated capacity, so the game can be played both ways!
- ... noYou didnt lose any space, because it wasnt there in the first place. The states drive capacity is a lie - or rather, a calculation using different methods. 1TB = 940gb, not 1000gbInterestingly, OSX uses the same calculation as HD manufacturers, so the 300GB hard disk I plugged in tells me that it is in fact 300gb.
- Yes, Apple 'adjusted' the calculation [to base 10] with Snow Leopard probably to reduce customer support requests.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2419
- in linux Did you set any options when you formatted, or just take the defaults? Try:
tune2fs -m 0 /dev/foothe drive manufacturers are giving you a perception of a larger capacity than it
really has. A 120 ', is only 114.5Gb to an operating system, It depends on who you agree with, should we change the computing definition of a
mega/giga to be 1000 instead of 1024 or vice versa?
How much space does Windows 10 take up in the system disk? This topic is followed by many people. In this essay, we will introduce how much space Windows 10 takes up in the hard disk, SSD and the space requirements of a system disk. There are 4 settings available when you format a hard disk in NTFS: Setting 1 reserves approximately 12.5% of the volume. (Default) Setting 2 reserves approximately 25%. Setting 3 reserves approximately 37.5%. Setting 4 reserves approximately 50%.