120 gig hdd is really 93 gigs help please

i have a quick question. i just bought my first mac(macbook) so i ordered it with 2 gigs of memory and a 120 gig hdd.i get it and look up system info and its says that 93 gigs are free. is this supposed to be like that? how come nothing close to 120? anyhelp thanks

Drive formatting and the OS installation will leave you with a lower amount.
Basically, actual drive space and formatted drive space are not equal.

this will answer your question

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30065

eric said:

check this thread out

Click to expand...

this link does indeed provide an answer (in answer to the negative rep i just got), if you don't see it, you're just not looking.

like already stated it all boils down to how the HD manufacturer reports the physical size of the disk as compared to the actual usable amount of space.

its like buying a bottle of ketchup...you buy 12 ounces, but you can only get 11 out of the bottle it is a fact of life with hard drive purchases.

I would also like to note that this is not an apple issue...it is something that can be noticed from all computer manufacturers.
-chris

coach_z said:

like already stated it all boils down to how the HD manufacturer reports the physical size of the disk as compared to the actual usable amount of space.

Click to expand...

but that wouldn't acount for over 20% of the space? 27Gb of a 120Gb drive?
of course the numbers will be a little off, but not by that much.

i think the other idea perpetuated here, that it's os and app overhead is the answer...

it comes down to binary math and base 10 math.. as stated in my above post with the link.

kodorsean said:

it comes down to binary math and base 10 math.. as stated in my above post with the link.

Click to expand...

so that accounts for 27Gb of a 120Gb drive?

it's a combination of math and os/apps. i think that's pretty clear from all of our previous posts.

eric said:

so that accounts for 27Gb of a 120Gb drive?

it's a combination of math and os/apps. i think that's pretty clear from all of our previous posts.

Click to expand...

I agree it comes own to math and os/apps.

My internal 120 hdd has 111.67 capacity.

well yes i kinda forgot about the OS install and basically was just talking about the actual representation of HD space.

if you want to free up some space you can remove a lot of the spare languages on your computer using monolingual: http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/

I own quite a few 120GB drives. None has more than 110-112MB capacity. OSX takes maybe 3-5 and the iLife suite takes a lot. You can take off iLife but I feel it's what makes OSX special but each to his own.

No neg Rep please. I can provide screen shots of each system with a 120GB drive and show just how much total capacity each has before the OS and apps get installed.