Hard Drive questions

I just got my new iMac back from the Apple store last night following their transfer of data from my PC, so I guess I'm officially a Mac user now!

I briefly played around with the computer and have a couple of questions about the hard drive.

First, although the drive is not what I would call noisy, I can definitely hear it "crunching" when I open a program and when the computer is accessing it to read/write. Is it reasonable to expect that the drive be completely silent? I don't hear any hard drive sound from my PC, but then the fans are making so much noise compared to the Apple that I might not hear it even if there is some sound. My one concern is that I will be using the computer at times to record audio and if a mic is sensitive I suppose it could pick up hard drive noise.

My other question has to do with data and drive space. The iMac has a 2 TB hard drive. When I brought it to the Apple store it said it had 1.99 TB free. I had maybe 350 GB of data to transfer and when I got the computer back it now reads 1.35 TB free. The math doesn't add up. Does anyone have an idea why I might now be missing 250-300 GB of space?

Thanks.

jazzer said:

I just got my new iMac back from the Apple store last night following their transfer of data from my PC, so I guess I'm officially a Mac user now!

I briefly played around with the computer and have a couple of questions about the hard drive.

First, although the drive is not what I would call noisy, I can definitely hear it "crunching" when I open a program and when the computer is accessing it to read/write. Is it reasonable to expect that the drive be completely silent? I don't hear any hard drive sound from my PC, but then the fans are making so much noise compared to the Apple that I might not hear it even if there is some sound. My one concern is that I will be using the computer at times to record audio and if a mic is sensitive I suppose it could pick up hard drive noise.

My other question has to do with data and drive space. The iMac has a 2 TB hard drive. When I brought it to the Apple store it said it had 1.99 TB free. I had maybe 350 GB of data to transfer and when I got the computer back it now reads 1.35 TB free. The math doesn't add up. Does anyone have an idea why I might now be missing 250-300 GB of space?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

As far as the hard drive sound...some are louder than others. It is NOT reasonable to expect a hard drive to be silent...especially in a very quiet room. I would not expect it to be loud...but not silent either.

As far as not hearing your Windows computers hard drive. Can I assume that your Windows computer is a tower computer sitting on the floor? If so...that computer is on the floor further from your head & ears...versus the iMac which is right in front of you! So of course you're going to be able to hear the "inner workings" better in the iMac.

Regarding hard drive space. The formatted capacity of hard drives is ALWAYS less than it's advertised capacity. A 2 TB hard drive after formatting will have a capacity around 1860 gigabytes...before any files or OS are installed.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

It is NOT reasonable to expect a hard drive to be silent...especially in a very quiet room. I would not expect it to be loud...but not silent either.

As far as not hearing your Windows computers hard drive. Can I assume that your Windows computer is a tower computer sitting on the floor? If so...that computer is on the floor further from your head & ears...versus the iMac which is right in front of you! So of course you're going to be able to hear the "inner workings" better in the iMac.

Regarding hard drive space. The formatted capacity of hard drives is ALWAYS less than it's advertised capacity. A 2 TB hard drive after formatting will have a capacity around 1860 gigabytes...before any files or OS are installed.

- Nick

Click to expand...

Thanks. I guess what is "loud" is relative and different for everyone. Since the iMac is otherwise very quiet compared to my prior computer and my room is now very quiet, the hard drive sound is that much more noticeable.

You are correct that at home I have a tower that is on the floor. Also, as I mentioned, the fans on the tower provide a constant "white noise." However, at work, I have the tower on my desk and it is much closer to my ear -- but still I hear nothing.

As far as the hard drive space, I understand that the formatted hard drive has less actual disk space than the actual stated drive size, but I still don't think that accounts for the discrepancy. The drive was formatted when I received the computer and indicated 1.99 TB of free space. After transferring the data, at the very least I would think it would be showing about 1.5 TB of space left. The amount of space I have is not an issue, but I would like to understand why there is this apparent difference. Could it have anything to do with the fact that the data transferred came from a hard drive that was formatted in Windows?

jazzer said:

I guess what is "loud" is relative and different for everyone. Since the iMac is otherwise very quiet compared to my prior computer and my room is now very quiet, the hard drive sound is that much more noticeable.

Click to expand...

Exactly..."relative" is the key word! Play some music while computing & the hard drive sounds will be less noticeable.

jazzer said:

As far as the hard drive space, I understand that the formatted hard drive has less actual disk space than the actual stated drive size, but I still don't think that accounts for the discrepancy. The drive was formatted when I received the computer and indicated 1.99 TB of free space. After transferring the data, at the very least I would think it would be showing about 1.5 TB of space left. The amount of space I have is not an issue, but I would like to understand why there is this apparent difference. Could it have anything to do with the fact that the data transferred came from a hard drive that was formatted in Windows?

Click to expand...

As far as the hard drive question...what size hard drive did you have on your Windows computer?

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

As far as the hard drive question...what size hard drive did you have on your Windows computer?

Click to expand...

I had two 250GB hard drives -- one was used for data and the other primarily for the OS, but because my data drive just about filled up I put some data on the OS drive also. The OS drive still had about 150 GB free, so the total of both drives, including the OS and programs was about 350 GB.

jazzer said:

I had two 250GB hard drives -- one was used for data and the other primarily for the OS, but because my data drive just about filled up I put some data on the OS drive also. The OS drive still had about 150 GB free, so the total of both drives, including the OS and programs was about 350 GB.

Click to expand...

One more question...how old was the Windows computer you moved from?

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

One more question...how old was the Windows computer you moved from?

- Nick

Click to expand...

About 6 1/2 years old. It's a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz. I was running Windows XP service pack 3.

As I'm thinking about this I realized there is one set of files (a folder containing FLAC lossless music files -- which I realize iTunes won't read natively) that accounted for a good portion of the data transferred. I'm going to have to take a look at that folder closer later when I'm home and compare the size listed on the Mac vs. that on my other computer or on my external hard drive that I used for data backup.

jazzer said:

About 6 1/2 years old. It's a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz. I was running Windows XP service pack 3.

Click to expand...

jazzer said:

I had two 250GB hard drives -- one was used for data and the other primarily for the OS, but because my data drive just about filled up I put some data on the OS drive also. The OS drive still had about 150 GB free, so the total of both drives, including the OS and programs was about 350 GB.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your previous Windows computer age & hard drive size info.

I'm going to take a shot at explaining the hard drive space info issue you have. Hard drive formatting can be a confusing topic...and hopefully what I'm about to say is not outdated info...but here's how hard drives are formatted...and it's relationship to space taken up on a hard drive.

First of all one "special consideration" here is that you moved a bunch of files from your previous Windows computer to a Macintosh. The way hard drives are formatted are different for a Mac & a Windows computer.

When a hard drive is formatted...the smallest storage area is called a "block". If you read the articles below:

Available hard drive space, block sizes, and size terminology | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

New disk sector size to shake up drive capacity - Techworld.com

...one of them explains how the minimum block size "standard" has changed on hard drives in the last 6.5 years (age of your Windows computer). Where I'm going is...the files that were stored on your 6.5 year old Windows computer may have stored differently (taking up less/more storage space)...and when you transferred those files to your Macintosh...this resulted in a difference of how much hard drive storage space was taken up.

So between the hard drive formatting differences between Windows & Macintosh computers...and the minimum hard drive block size change since you purchased your 6.5 year-old Windows computer running XP...may explain your hard drive space question.

Hope this helps,

- Nick

p.s. By the way...I'm not sure of your computer expertise level (or interest)...so maybe this info was too much/boring...or maybe it was interesting...or stuff you already knew.

Nick,

Thanks very much. I appreciate your taking the time to respond and try to help with my question(s). For your information, I guess I would say my computer knowledge/experience is at an intermediate or so level (not a beginner but not a real power user). I am generally familiar with much of the information regarding storage, but the links and info were still helpful.

One thing I didn't mention was that the original computer came with a single hard drive and I added another later -- I don't recall how long ago, but would guess it was a few years. I also had a hard drive crash and had to replace a hard drive, but I'm not sure which one at this point.

I'm going to take a little closer look at the files on my system later and see if I can do a comparison. I suppose it's even possible, although not likely, that somehow some files got copied to the iMac twice. If I find out anymore I'll report back.

Once again, thanks for your time and help.

Good Deal & good luck,

- Nick

Well, I didn't have a lot of time last night, but I did look around a little. I found that there were some things in the trash that were taking up probably around 40 GB, but that clearly isn't everything.

I also found that there was about 200 GB of files in the Public Folder that appear to be duplicates of files in other places. Are they actually duplicate files if put in the Public Folder or would that simply be a shortcut (to use a Windows term) back to the Documents or Music Folder where the actual files reside?

Something similar happened to me with the extra GB taking up space on the drive. I originally had 25GB of under user account. Then I did a Time Machine backup, I end up with 50+GB taking up my 160GB drive. Looked every where under Finder and couldn't find the extra 25GB. Everything looked normal , except for the extra GBs. Few months later, I read through this forum, found out about this little apps that lets you see ALL the folders and files. I had somehow copied my whole account folder onto the drive, but it did not showed up on Finder, thus doubling the amount of space taken up.

Sorry, but I can't remember the name of the app...

Disk Inventory X is a great program for figuring out what is on your hard drive. It visually shows you your largest files - sometimes it isn't what you expect.
http://www.derlien.com/

Also Finder doesn't show you everything unless you turn on a switch
In terminal type
To turn it off set TRUE to FALSE and rerun

Just thought I would give you an update on the hard drive file space issue. It turns out that there were duplicate files on the hard drive that was taking up the space. Evidently when they did the data transfer, folders were initially placed in the Public folder and then moved from there. Some of the files were never deleted from the Public folder. I also found some duplicate folders in a couple of other spots including in the Trash. After deleting these files I now show 1.72 TB free, which is about what I would have expected based on the files I was having transferred. That should keep me for a while .

Thanks again for everyone's help.

There ya go...congrats!

- Nick

good news that you got it resolved!! - I went from a Win XP machine to the iMac but also had the luxury of an external Seagate 1TB drive - which I already had all my music and pictures on... it was fairly straightforward and pain free to transfer them from this to the Mac... and once done - I formatted the external drive as a Time Machine drive!