Thread: HDD problem

  1. #1
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    HDD problem

    my HDD is of 20gb.......and i am having 3 drives.....but total size of three drives (c+d+e) become 18.5 or 19 gb.....
    my friend is having HDD of 10gb and having single drive (c). but in properties it is showing some 8gb .........so why this differnce of 1 or 2 gb? is this a hdd loss or comp. error?

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    sorry

    oops..........i want to post this thread under General.........so how can i move this thread there?help me first for moving thread......
    sorry again...........

  3. #3
    the hat of redundancy hat nvoigt's Avatar
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    There is a difference in units:

    a kilobyte is 1024 bytes. However, a Kilo bytes is 1000 bytes.

    Accordingly, a megabyte is 1024*1024 bytes ( kilobyte*kilobyte ), however a mega bytes would sum up to kilo*kilo = 1000*1000 bytes. Add Giga to this and it becomes 1024³ or 1000³ depending on your usage of kilo. Marketing people tend to use kilo = 1000 because it's a cheap trick to declare something larger than it actually is. On the other hand, some of them simply have no clue that bytes are measured in powers of two ( 1024 = 2^10 ).

    Your HDD is 20 gig, which, translated from marketing to real world units is not 20*1024*1024*1024 bytes, but 20*1000*1000*1000 bytes.

    Your HDD has 20.000.000.000 bytes ( 20 marketing gigs ).
    If you divide this by 1024 three times to get the number of real GB, you get 18.6something GB ( 18.626.451.492 bytes )

    If my butcher would calculate this way, I would probably call the police... welcome to the world of marketing.
    hth
    -nv

    She was so Blonde, she spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice can because it said "Concentrate."

    When in doubt, read the FAQ.
    Then ask a smart question.

  4. #4
    Its not rocket science vasanth's Avatar
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    Weall for extra pocket money i assemble PC's... I had a very hard time explaining to a customer why his hdd was only around 35.5 when i specified 40 GB in the quotation...

  5. #5
    Addicted to the Internet netboy's Avatar
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    It's all about units conversion problem.... Not a problem actually... It's the conversion that confused many non-IT literate users about getting a "smaller" harddisk drive from the stated size.

    It's unfulfilled dreams that keep you alive.

    //netboy

  6. #6
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    netboy........can u plz explain the unit conversion to me.........
    plz....

  7. #7
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    i got it

    yes.........i got it guys.............sorry.i was confused.thats why asking ques......now i got it...........thanx to everybody........esp. Mr. Nvoigt.........thanx again.................

    pk

  8. #8
    Much older and wiser Fountain's Avatar
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    You really trying to sat that you thought a 20gig drive was really 20gig? Oh man
    Such is life.

  9. #9
    Its not rocket science vasanth's Avatar
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    well i onece had another problem.. I assembled a PC for a old customer who was learning computers.. He called me on phone and said he wanted only one harddisk of capacity 10 GB and not 4 which made up 10Gb...(I had partitioned his HDD into 4 parts )..

  10. #10
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    gr8 joke

    that was gr8 practical joke.............did u provide him a coffee tray?
    one of customer called my friend and said that ,'the coffee tray ,u have provided, is broken'..........he was talking about cd drive.....and before calling he put a coffee mug on that........

  11. #11
    "The Oldest Member Here" Xterria's Avatar
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    hey prasad have you ever seen a cobra

  12. #12
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    yess............why?

  13. #13
    "The Oldest Member Here" Xterria's Avatar
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    how close?

  14. #14
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    from 5 fts...........one cobra is there in the bushes behind my house....many times I saw him(or her) going here and there........or trying to catch the little birds on my mango tree.....
    But why r u asking.............?
    is it related, some how ,to my HDD prob?.........lol.........

  15. #15
    "The Oldest Member Here" Xterria's Avatar
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    no i just happened to see you were from india and i though of rikki tikki tavi

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