Why is capacity on my ipod classic is significantly lower than expected?

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Why is capacity on my ipod classic is significantly lower than expected?

I have a new 80 GB ipod classic. I loaded it with about 4 GB's or so of music in the first couple of days. Then on the the third day when I tried to add more music, it erased everything off the ipod that I had loaded previously and replaced it with the new music I had added by CD to my itunes library. Not knowing what to do, I "restored" the ipod by using the restore button then sync'd again with the result that all my music was back including the original music. The problem: it's as if the first 6 GB's of space is still used up and the scale on my summary tab shows the total capacity of my ipod as 74.31 GB's with only 5 GB's of music and other on the ipod. What is taking up the other space? It should be showing a total capacity of 80 BG with 75 GB's left. What's up? Any body know?

ipod classic, Windows XP

Posted on Sep 4, 2008 8:58 PM

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Answer 1

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Jeff Bryan

Level 9

61,791 points

Sep 5, 2008 1:32 AM in response to Roberto Jara

my summary tab shows the total capacity of my ipod as 74.31 GB's with only 5 GB's of music and other on the ipod. What is taking up the other space? It should be showing a total capacity of 80 BG with 75 GB's left. What's up? Any body know?

All hard drives never have the full advertised storage space, and as a general rule it's around 7% less than stated.

It's because hard drive manufacturers calculate hard drive space different than computers actually read it.

For a full technical explanation, see these.

Hard disk: Is it missing space?

How much content will fit on my iPod?

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Answer 2

Roberto Jara Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 5, 2008 4:03 PM in response to Jeff Bryan

Thanks. I am still kind of puzzled, because on the same computer it showed 80 GB's of capacity when I first started loading the ipod. It wasn't until after I had the problem I described. It's almost as if the original content remained hidden on the ipod and I just added it in again, but the original is no longer accessible. It just takes up space. Is that possible?

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Answer 3

Jeff Bryan

Level 9

61,791 points

Sep 6, 2008 1:17 AM in response to Roberto Jara

because on the same computer it showed 80 GB's of capacity

That simply isn't possible because there isn't 80GB of free space. The amount of space on an 80GB iPod is 74.35GB. There will never ever be the full amount of advertised space on any hard drive due to the reasons I outlined earlier.

It's the same on your computer's internal hd and any ext hd you may have.

It's almost as if the original content remained hidden on the ipod and I just added it in again, but the original is no longer accessible. It just takes up space. Is that possible?

Maybe you just misread it? If you connect the iPod and then read the storage bar at the bottom of the iTunes summary page, you'll see "capacity 74.35GB".

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Answer 4

Roberto Jara Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 6, 2008 11:18 PM in response to Jeff Bryan

Thanks. Your explanation makes sense. You're probably right and I misread it. If that is the case with all "80 GB" ipods, I can rest easy that I didn't screw something up on it.

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