Real capacity of iPod nano models?

parkinni · Dec 6, 2006

Just bought my brother back in the UK a 2nd. gen. black iPod nano 8GB as a Christmas gift. Before shipping it home, I hooked it up to my MacBook and saw that the actual capacity of it was just 7.50GB! Now, that won't be a problem for him, but after using his nano, I was toying with the idea of buying myself one of the smaller capacity models. What's the actual available storage on the 2GB and 4GB models straight out of the box? Do they show less memory than they're supposed to have, or is what I'm seeing with the 8GB model a consequence of it having a hard drive rather than the flash memory of the smaller nanos?

If anyone can fill in the blanks for me, I'd appreciate it:

nano size________available storage
8 GB_____________7.50 GB
4 GB_____________?
2 GB_____________?

Regardless, I'd like to know what the ACTUAL storage capacity of each nano is before I decide to buy one for myself. Thanks!

eric · Dec 6, 2006

even with flash memory drives, there will be some space taken up for the "os". my 2Gb sandisk player probably had/has about 1.8 to 1.9 Gb available.

parkinni · Dec 6, 2006

Yeah, I was expecting a small amount to be lost to the OS, but why was it as much as 500MB on the 8GB nano?

fyrman22 · Dec 6, 2006

my 4GB Nano shows 3.68 GB. Ihave about 700 songs on mine and its full. Im sure I could re-encode them to get more on there. But I change em out all the time anyways and I not about to re-encode the 5,000+ songs in my library.

KoDorSean · Dec 6, 2006

parkinni said:
Just bought my brother back in the UK a 2nd. gen. black iPod nano 8GB as a Christmas gift. Before shipping it home, I hooked it up to my MacBook and saw that the actual capacity of it was just 7.50GB! Now, that won't be a problem for him, but after using his nano, I was toying with the idea of buying myself one of the smaller capacity models. What's the actual available storage on the 2GB and 4GB models straight out of the box? Do they show less memory than they're supposed to have, or is what I'm seeing with the 8GB model a consequence of it having a hard drive rather than the flash memory of the smaller nanos?

If anyone can fill in the blanks for me, I'd appreciate it:

nano size________available storage
8 GB_____________7.50 GB
4 GB_____________?
2 GB_____________?

Regardless, I'd like to know what the ACTUAL storage capacity of each nano is before I decide to buy one for myself. Thanks!

Mac OS X reports hard drive capacity in binary math, hard drive manufacturers report capacity in base 10 math

Modern operating systems such as Mac OS X use binary mathematics to define the total capacity of a hard drive. Using binary math, an 80-gigabyte (GB) hard drive reports approximately 74.51 GB of available space.

In binary math, 1 GB is equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes, whereas conventional (or base 10) mathematics instead calculate 1 GB as exactly 1,000,000,000 bytes.

This numerical discrepancy (73,741,824 bytes per gigabyte) represents a difference between the physical “base 10” specification used by hard drive manufacturers and Mac OS X’s binary measurement of available capacity. The 80 GB and 74.51 GB values represent two methods of mathematical measurement that describe a hard drive with approximately 80 billion bytes.

This is normal behavior, and there is no hard disk space missing. Regardless of which method is used to measure total capacity, the storage capacity in bytes of the hard drive is the same. Previous operating systems (including Mac OS 9 and earlier versions) also demonstrate this mathematical difference.

Other factors, such as the system software, applications, updates, and your files and data use part of the available disk capacity, meaning a new Macintosh computer will not show the total capacity listed as available for use. The amount of hard disk drive space required for normal operation of a Macintosh computer will vary widely, depending on configuration, model, and personal requirements.

Note: Hard disk manufacturers may also round off decimal places when stating storage specifications, such as approximately "39.5 GB" instead of "39.49 GB".

KoDorSean · Dec 7, 2006

you will get around 3.65gb on a 4 gig nano
you will get around 1.8 gb on a 2 gig nano

I did not do the math but that should be pretty close.

parkinni · Dec 7, 2006

Thanks for taking time out to let me know those capacities. Based on fyrman22 getting ~700 songs on 4GB, I think I'll plump for a 2GB model. Incidentally, which is the better buy - the 1st. or 2nd. generation nano?

KoDorSean · Dec 7, 2006

parkinni said:
Thanks for taking time out to let me know those capacities. Based on fyrman22 getting ~700 songs on 4GB, I think I'll plump for a 2GB model. Incidentally, which is the better buy - the 1st. or 2nd. generation nano?

happy to help.

No question, go with the second generation.. the first gen only has 14hrs of playback the second gen has 24hrs.

Nath316 · Feb 23, 2009

now this is why I hate things like harddrives etc

you buy it saying it has X GB on the drive when it doesnt

like most here I have a 8GB nano 3rd gen but max capacity is 7.41 GB

Using standard rules of rounding up or down that is 7GB not 8

I understand that some is lost because of O/S etc but surely it doesnt take 590 MB and why do we not have th option of removing items that are standard eg Games etc!

Such is life I suppose

bobtomay · Feb 23, 2009

Nath316 said:
now this is why I hate things like harddrives etc

you buy it saying it has X GB on the drive when it doesnt

like most here I have a 8GB nano 3rd gen but max capacity is 7.41 GB

Using standard rules of rounding up or down that is 7GB not 8

I understand that some is lost because of O/S etc but surely it doesnt take 590 MB and why do we not have th option of removing items that are standard eg Games etc!

Such is life I suppose

Suggest you look above and read Kodorsean's post # 5 above. You just might gain a little understanding of how hard drive space is reported. He has explained it quite adequately there.

Dysfunction · Feb 23, 2009

You have no idea how much I wish marketing departments the world wide would give up base 10 measurement. I know it's easy for them, but it just doesn't work well in a binary world.

BTW, if you're curious do the following.. open up terminal and issue the following commands.

df -h

and

df -H

you'll notice that the one in which the 'h' is capitalized the space is reported in base 10.

Code:

mikeMbp:~ mike$ df -h
Filesystem                     Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                  233Gi  127Gi  106Gi    55%    /

mikeMbp:~ mike$ df -H
Filesystem                     Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                   250G   136G   114G    55%    /

see? same drive, same size.. different expressions.

Nath316 · Feb 24, 2009

bobtomay said:
Suggest you look above and read Kodorsean's post # 5 above. You just might gain a little understanding of how hard drive space is reported. He has explained it quite adequately there.

Oh i have no problem with the explanation I understood that straight away

BUT and this is the importnt thing, what you are paying for and what you get are 2 separate things

Yes I know under Base 10 it is 8GB but when it comes to actually working it uses Binary and therefore there is less on it

I suppose it is an argument that can go on for ever and until companies sort out what they are using and what they are advertising this will always be the matter. Although with iPods and other Generic mp3 players maybe the companies should make the capacity bigger eg 8.5GB to handle the O/S and then a user would get a truer reading on capacity.

If you were to go out and buy a litre bottle of coke but when you opened it you only got 3/4 of a litre you would feel ripped off wouldnt you? In essence it is the same thing.

davidsword · Feb 24, 2009

Nath316 said:
Oh i have no problem with the explanation I understood that straight away

BUT and this is the importnt thing, what you are paying for and what you get are 2 separate things

Yes I know under Base 10 it is 8GB but when it comes to actually working it uses Binary and therefore there is less on it

I suppose it is an argument that can go on for ever and until companies sort out what they are using and what they are advertising this will always be the matter. Although with iPods and other Generic mp3 players maybe the companies should make the capacity bigger eg 8.5GB to handle the O/S and then a user would get a truer reading on capacity.

If you were to go out and buy a litre bottle of coke but when you opened it you only got 3/4 of a litre you would feel ripped off wouldnt you? In essence it is the same thing.

no. read the disclaimer in plane text on any hdd box it will say "1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less." it's not hidden. its proper measurement. right on the box "actual formatted capacity less". Your comparison of "buy a litre bottle of coke but when you opened it you only got 3/4 of a litre" is asinine and completely out of context as firstly, they're not not giving you 1/4th of the product advertised, and secondly, they're telling you exactly what you are getting or else they'd be facing false advertising law suites.

Nath316 · Feb 24, 2009

davidsword said:
no. read the disclaimer in plane text on any hdd box it will say "1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less." it's not hidden. its proper measurement. right on the box "actual formatted capacity less". Your comparison of "buy a litre bottle of coke but when you opened it you only got 3/4 of a litre" is asinine and completely out of context as firstly, they're not not giving you 1/4th of the product advertised, and secondly, they're telling you exactly what you are getting or else they'd be facing false advertising law suites.

Just to point out a few things

actual formatted capacity less and exactly are not the same, yes I know you mean the coke analogy but is the same thing

saying it is less but not by how much is WRONG I mean on 8GB you are losing 500+MB which in anyones language is a fair amount of space

Ahh right I have just read through all the documentation that came with the iPod and was about to go ballistic

BUT

Then I noticed on the back of the box in very small and very feint font exactly what you have said above

So yes there is a disclaimer although it isnt very specific is it

I will get off my soapbox now, however I still believe that products like iPod and storage drives etc should have what is said on the packet ie actually 8GB