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how big is my hard drive?
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<blockquote data-quote="Nick Naym" data-source="post: 714996" data-attributes="member: 65375"><p><strong>Garblefarb!</strong></p><p></p><p>This "lost to formatting" stuff sounds like the kind of garblefarb you get from the untrained high school kids working as "Sales Consultants" at Best Buy.</p><p></p><p>The truth is that your hard drive can indeed hold 320 gigabytes of data. To be precise, that's 320,000,000,000 bytes. </p><p></p><p>Us humans use the decimal system to represent numbers, wherein we express numbers as powers of 10. So we normally refer to amounts of data in “chunks” of thousands (kilo), millions (mega), billions (giga), etc.: </p><p></p><p>1,000 bytes = 10^3 bytes = 1 kilobyte</p><p>1,000,000 bytes = 10^6 bytes = 1 megabyte</p><p>1,000,000,000 bytes = 10^9 bytes = 1 gigabyte. </p><p></p><p>Since computers were designed around very basic electrical “switches” which can either be “on” or “off,” it was natural for them to use the binary system (where “off” represents a “0,” and “on” represents “1”) to process data. Now, as it turns out, two to the tenth power, 2^10, is 1,024, which is very close in value to 1,000 (10^3). Similarly, 2^20 is 1,048,576, which is approximately 1,000,000 (10^6), and 2^30 is 1,073,741,824, which is close to 1,000,000,000 (10^9). Consequently, the computer folks (being human <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> ) began applying the abbreviations normally associated with decimal numbers to binary numbers. This led to 2^10 being given the prefix “kilo,” 2^20 given the prefix “mega,” and 2^30 being referred to as “giga.” So, in the Wonderful World of Computers,</p><p></p><p>1,048,576 bytes = 2^10 bytes = 1 (binary) kilobyte</p><p>1,048,576 bytes = 2^20 bytes = 1 (binary) megabyte</p><p>1,073,741,824 bytes = 2^30 bytes = 1 (binary) gigabyte.</p><p></p><p>The bottom line is this: The capacity of your hard drive can be expressed in either notation. Since 298 <em>binary</em> gigabytes is the same as 320 <em>decimal</em> gigabytes, what do you think the marketing folks want to have printed on the outside of the box? ;D</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nick Naym, post: 714996, member: 65375"] [b]Garblefarb![/b] This "lost to formatting" stuff sounds like the kind of garblefarb you get from the untrained high school kids working as "Sales Consultants" at Best Buy. The truth is that your hard drive can indeed hold 320 gigabytes of data. To be precise, that's 320,000,000,000 bytes. Us humans use the decimal system to represent numbers, wherein we express numbers as powers of 10. So we normally refer to amounts of data in “chunks” of thousands (kilo), millions (mega), billions (giga), etc.: 1,000 bytes = 10^3 bytes = 1 kilobyte 1,000,000 bytes = 10^6 bytes = 1 megabyte 1,000,000,000 bytes = 10^9 bytes = 1 gigabyte. Since computers were designed around very basic electrical “switches” which can either be “on” or “off,” it was natural for them to use the binary system (where “off” represents a “0,” and “on” represents “1”) to process data. Now, as it turns out, two to the tenth power, 2^10, is 1,024, which is very close in value to 1,000 (10^3). Similarly, 2^20 is 1,048,576, which is approximately 1,000,000 (10^6), and 2^30 is 1,073,741,824, which is close to 1,000,000,000 (10^9). Consequently, the computer folks (being human ;) ) began applying the abbreviations normally associated with decimal numbers to binary numbers. This led to 2^10 being given the prefix “kilo,” 2^20 given the prefix “mega,” and 2^30 being referred to as “giga.” So, in the Wonderful World of Computers, 1,048,576 bytes = 2^10 bytes = 1 (binary) kilobyte 1,048,576 bytes = 2^20 bytes = 1 (binary) megabyte 1,073,741,824 bytes = 2^30 bytes = 1 (binary) gigabyte. The bottom line is this: The capacity of your hard drive can be expressed in either notation. Since 298 [I]binary[/I] gigabytes is the same as 320 [I]decimal[/I] gigabytes, what do you think the marketing folks want to have printed on the outside of the box? ;D [/QUOTE]
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how big is my hard drive?
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