Shoutbox

I had this discussion recently about the size of MP3 players...
I bought a 4 GB, but my computer displays it as 3.73 GB

3.73 GB * 1024 = 3819.52 MB
3819.52 MB * 1024 = 3911188.48 KB
3911188.48 KB * 1024 = 4005057003.52 B

Now, when I look into my physics book, I see that G stands for 10^9.
So 4005057003,52 = 4 * 10^9 B, which is correct.

It's just a marketing trick to give you the impression you buy more than what you'll get in the end and the worst thing is: it's all correct, so you can't complain

Anyway, TheMusicPirate's case:
4190.5 MB * 1024 = 4291072 KB
4291072 KB * 1024 = 4394057728 B

which equals 4.4 * 10^9 B or 4.4 GB if your vendor applies the same marketing trick.

It's Over 9000!

quote:

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Originally posted by Jesus
I had this discussion recently about the size of MP3 players...
I bought a 4 GB, but my computer displays it as 3.73 GB

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thats because they need room for firmware and software i think, so you never get an mp3 player with exactly what it says its always slightly less.

quote:

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Originally posted by ichooselife128

quote:

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Originally posted by Jesus
I had this discussion recently about the size of MP3 players...
I bought a 4 GB, but my computer displays it as 3.73 GB

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thats because they need room for firmware and software i think, so you never get an mp3 player with exactly what it says its always slightly less.

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Nope, when thay say 4GB, They mean 4,000MB instead of  4,096. Like with my 320GB HDD, it only has 293GB, Because it is 320,000MB, instead of  327,680MB

quote:

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Originally posted by ichooselife128
thats because they need room for firmware and software i think, so you never get an mp3 player with exactly what it says its always slightly less.

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thats true of most ly all hard drives i've seen

ive got 3 hard drives and they are like this:
on the box :: actual
40GB   :: 38.2GB
160GB :: 152GB
250GB :: 233GB

quote:

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Originally posted by atown44
It's Over 9000!

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Dragon Ball Z

quote:

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Originally posted by ichooselife128

quote:

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Originally posted by Jesus
I had this discussion recently about the size of MP3 players...
I bought a 4 GB, but my computer displays it as 3.73 GB

---

thats because they need room for firmware and software i think, so you never get an mp3 player with exactly what it says its always slightly less.

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nope, it's with the firmware and drivers included. It works like a USB harddisk and I can browse the entire player, including all system files on it. Aside from that, HDDs also show a smaller size in a pc while eg a 250GB HDD won't need 17 GB for just firmware...
It's just that some manufacturers use the "actual" Gigabyte, which is 10^9 bytes, in their description, and computers use the "digital" Gigabyte, which is a power of 2 as MeEtc earlier mentioned. In this case (2^10)^3 bytes (or 2^30 bytes if you like).
Also, some manufacturers use something in between, like 10^6 KB = 1 GB, as I will show you below.

quote:

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Originally posted by Dazmo
Nope, when thay say 4GB, They mean 4,000MB instead of  4,096.

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Almost there... when they (my MP3 player manufacturer) say 4GB they mean 4,000,000,000 bytes or 4 * 10^9 bytes as I said a few times before...
Ofcourse this depends on the manufacturer.

quote:

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Originally posted by NiteMare
on the box :: actual
40GB   :: 38.2GB
160GB :: 152GB
250GB :: 233GB

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38.2 GB * 1024 = 39116.8 MB
39116,8 MB * 1024 = 40055603.2 KB
that's actually 40 * 10^6 KB, so your manufacturer used 10^6 KB = 1 GB

152 GB * 1024 = 155648 MB
155648 MB * 1024 = 159383552 KB
which equals 159 * 10^6 KB
again, the manufacturer is using 10^6 KB = 1 GB. The slight difference (159.3 GB instead of 160 GB) might be because of some damaged sectors (or because you've been ripped off )

233 GB * 1024 = 238592 MB
238592 MB * 1024 = 244318208 KB
250181844992 KB * 1024 = 250181844992 B
or 250 * 10^9 B
with this drive, they used 10^9 B = 1 GB again.

Do the first 2 happen to be from the same manufacturer/brand?


one last example: one of my own HDDs:
it should be 80 GB, but it shows up as 76.3 GB
76.3 GB * 1024 = 78131.2 MB
78131.2 MB * 1024 = 80006348.8 KB
or 80 * 10^6 KB
again, 10^6 KB = 1 GB

so as I see it now, it depends on the manufacturer and the calculation they apply. There seems to be no real standard for what you can call a Gigabyte, it's always somewhere in between.


edit: whoa, it became quite a story

even more edit: 250th post yay