2048 GB Hard Disk

Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?

On Sat, 09 Jun 2012 04:30:00 +0100, Hard disk Size wrote:

> Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?

In name only. Consider yourself damn lucky if you wind up with 1600gb.

Hard disk Size wrote:

> Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?

There are two measurement systems inside computers.

Disk drives are measured in power_of_ten units. The
unit in this case, for the disk drive, would be "terabyte".
The nearest equivalent units in the two systems, are
explained in this article. So the 2TB drive has
2000000000000 bytes of storage. The disk drive
manufacturers like this system, because it makes
the drives "deceptively smaller". They wouldn't
think of using power_of_two units to measure the
total capacity, even though actual storage operations
on the disk are done in power_of_two chunks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tebibyte

"1 tebibyte = 2**40 bytes = 1099511627776 bytes

related to the terabyte, which is defined as <--- disks
10**12 bytes = 1000000000000 bytes"

The drive is not "naturally" that size. When you check
the exact size, you'll find it's slightly more than
the nice round number. If they were to give less than
the number, they'd be in trouble with the FTC or
equivalent organization.

The disk drive uses "zoned" storage, meaning the tracks on
the disk, don't store the same amount as you move across
the disk. Since the diameter of each track differs, the
information stored on the track can differ. And so there's
no reason for the storage to really align with anything.
It's just a big "bucket of bytes". But, at least the
sectors are "power_of_two" units, whether they're 512 byte
native sectors or 4096 byte native sectors. Both are
power_of_two numbers.

*******

Computer RAM uses binary addressing, and arrays of memory
typically fill the address space, so the units in usage
there are the power_of_two kind. So a 1GiB stick of RAM
contains 1024*1024*1024 = 2**30 bytes. No rounding off
to power_of_ten units there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte

"1 gibibyte = 2**30 bytes = 1073741824 bytes <--- sticks of RAM

related to the gigabyte, which is defined as
10**9 bytes = 1000000000 bytes"

Having the addressing and dimensions work that way, makes
design of the guts of the computer simpler. Address decoding
is relatively simple, because of this choice of doing things.

HTH,
Paul

On Fri, 8 Jun 2012 23:53:11 -0400, richard <> wrote:

>On Sat, 09 Jun 2012 04:30:00 +0100, Hard disk Size wrote:
>
>> Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?
>
>In name only.

In other words, yes. Is that what you meant?

>Consider yourself damn lucky if you wind up with 1600gb.

I'm not sure why that would be lucky when you should end up with about
1853GB (or 1.81TB) after formatting.

--

Char Jackson

Hard disk Size wrote:

> Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?

2^10 = 1024

1 GB = 2^30 bytes
1 TB = 2^40 bytes = 2^10 * 2^30 = 1024 GB

Decimal orders of magnitude:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petabyte

Each has a handy table showing the various sizes. Each is 1000 (or
1024) times greater than the prior size. Because of the deliberate
confusion caused by marketers trying to make hard disks look bigger than
they are by using binary prefixes instead of decimal prefixes, new terms
have evolved to differentiate those base on 2^N and 10^N.

Binary orders of magnitude:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibibyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tebibyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebibyte

Computers are binary. Marketers are decimal.

VanguardLH wrote:

> Because of the deliberate
> confusion caused by marketers trying to make hard disks look bigger than
> they are by using binary prefixes instead of decimal prefixes, new terms
> have evolved to differentiate those base on 2^N and 10^N.
>
> Computers are binary. Marketers are decimal.

Memory manufacturers and marketers use binary.

Hard disc manufacturers and marketers use decimal except when
reading/writing chunks from the discs, when they tend to use binary (but
some SANs can use larger e.g. 520 up to 528 byte sectors, the total disc
size doesn't vary though, the user just gets to use less of it.)

Hard disk Size wrote:
> Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?

Yes.

--
Crash

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down."
~ Robert Frost ~

Char Jackson wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Jun 2012 23:53:11 -0400, richard<> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 09 Jun 2012 04:30:00 +0100, Hard disk Size wrote:
>>
>>> Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?
>>
>> In name only.
>
> In other words, yes. Is that what you meant?
>
>> Consider yourself damn lucky if you wind up with 1600gb.
>
> I'm not sure why that would be lucky when you should end up with about
> 1853GB (or 1.81TB) after formatting.
>

I have a 2TB internal drive, partitioned thus;
17GB
100GB
922.95GB
922.97GB
=
1962.92GB in all.

Taking 2048GB as the notional size, I get

1962.92/2048 *100
=
95.8457%

Ed

In message <jqvchi$d9c$>, Ed Cryer
<> writes:
>Char Jackson wrote:
>> On Fri, 8 Jun 2012 23:53:11 -0400, richard<> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 09 Jun 2012 04:30:00 +0100, Hard disk Size wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?
>>>
>>> In name only.
>>
>> In other words, yes. Is that what you meant?
>>
>>> Consider yourself damn lucky if you wind up with 1600gb.
>>
>> I'm not sure why that would be lucky when you should end up with about
>> 1853GB (or 1.81TB) after formatting.
>>
>
>I have a 2TB internal drive, partitioned thus;
>17GB
>100GB
>922.95GB
>922.97GB
>=
>1962.92GB in all.
>
>Taking 2048GB as the notional size, I get
>
>1962.92/2048 *100
>=
>95.8457%
>
>Ed
>
>
>
>
>
I think the disc manufacturer would say 2000 is the notional size, in
fact 2 000 000 000 bytes, so you're even closer to 100%. (I didn't
_think_ formatting took that much; OK, you need a partition table. But
the usual reason for discrepancy is the 2.4% difference between 1000 and
1024, raised to whatever power technology has reached, currently 3,
making 1.073741824, i. e. about 7.4% difference between binary and
decimal T, such that a 2 T drive is about 2/1.073741824 or ~1.86 TiB.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"So, I take it you've ... been with a man before?" "I'm a virgin. I'm just not
very good at it." Topper Harley & Ramada Thompson (Charlie Sheen & Valeria
Golino), in "Hot Shots!" (1991).

On 09/06/2012 12:36, Ed Cryer wrote:
> Char Jackson wrote:
>> On Fri, 8 Jun 2012 23:53:11 -0400, richard<> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 09 Jun 2012 04:30:00 +0100, Hard disk Size wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is 2048GB Hard Disk same as 2TB Hard Disk?
>>>
>>> In name only.
>>
>> In other words, yes. Is that what you meant?
>>
>>> Consider yourself damn lucky if you wind up with 1600gb.
>>
>> I'm not sure why that would be lucky when you should end up with about
>> 1853GB (or 1.81TB) after formatting.
>>
>
> I have a 2TB internal drive, partitioned thus;
> 17GB
> 100GB
> 922.95GB
> 922.97GB
> =
> 1962.92GB in all.
>
> Taking 2048GB as the notional size, I get
>
> 1962.92/2048 *100
> =
> 95.8457%
>
The space available for data would be rather less than the partition
sizes you give, as the Master File Table that windows uses is allocated
12% of the partition size by default, which can increase if you have a
large number of small files in the volume.

If you check a newly created, empty, unformatted, single partition on a
2TB Hard drive, you may see something not unadjacent to 95% of the HD
size shown. When it is formatted as NTFS by Windows, you will
immediately lose 12% of that for the MFT. If it is formatted for FAT32,
then the FAT would normally be smaller than the MFT.


--
Tciao for Now!

John.