Hard disk: bought 160GB, shows only 149GB

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Level 1

10 points

Hard disk: bought 160GB, shows only 149GB

Hello,
I searched around the discussion forums, but did not find any hint.
I bought a new MacBook Pro with 160GB hard disk (built to order). When the machine came, I just started up, configured, migrated my data from my old G4 Powerbook and everything went fine.

Now, while I am preparing for Leopard upgrade, I saw that the disk drive tells me
that it has a total capacity of 149GB. But I bought an 160GB.
So, where has the 11GB go?
Any hint? Swap space?

Thanks a lot and have a nice day

Message was edited by: IPM

Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Posted on Oct 29, 2007 4:04 PM

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Answer 1

IPM Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 29, 2007 4:13 PM in response to IPM

Sorry, wrong category.

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Answer 2

Oct 29, 2007 4:18 PM in response to IPM

Hard Drives advertised capacity isn't true, it can be off by up to 10%. I also have a 160Gb drive that reads 149. Don't worry! It is fine, I have another 160gb drive that is 145gb so be happy! A 250gb drive might only be 230gb, get it?

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Answer 3

zimer1

Level 1

20 points

Oct 30, 2007 5:20 PM in response to IPM

Don't forget the OS and other programs use up space too.

zimer

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Answer 4

Oct 30, 2007 5:45 PM in response to IPM

This is to be expected. Hard disk manufacturers advertise the disk capacity in base 10 units. Your computer uses / reports the disk size in base 2 units. As drive size increases, the "lost" (not really though) space will increase as well.

There is a good explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

sp

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Answer 5

Oct 30, 2007 6:07 PM in response to IPM

The hardrive actually is 160GB, 11GB are used for formatting the drive so you can only use 149GB of the space. It's the same with any hard drive or even memory cards.

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Answer 6

Oct 30, 2007 6:22 PM in response to MICHAELSD

Yes it is the same for all Mass storage devices, but "formatting" is not the issue. The formatting of a device will cause some reduction in storage capacity. Please see the above noted Wikipedia article for the real reason for the discrepancy.

Stedman

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Answer 7

Oct 30, 2007 6:27 PM in response to MICHAELSD

"The hardrive actually is 160GB, 11GB are used for formatting the drive so you can only use 149GB of the space. It's the same with any hard drive or even memory cards. "

This is incorrect. The 11GB is not used for anything. The difference you see is only because hard drive sizes are advertised in SI and the computer uses binary.

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Answer 8

RJSky

Level 1

20 points

Oct 30, 2007 6:39 PM in response to IPM

To add to the other responses, if you look in Disk Utility at your total size it will read somewhere around 160,000,000,000 bytes. I have a 160GB disk too, and mine reads "160,041,885,696 Bytes" and the total size reads "149.1GB". It's just a normal reading of the literal "Gigabytes". Remember, 1MB actually equals 1,024 bytes, not 1,000

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