3.7GB only in my 4GB Nano???

Is this the same for every one else's too??

Yes, it is. Check this: Is it missing space?

yes this is perfectly normal...

memory manufacturers of hardrives, and flash storage, base their calculations on 1000Mb to 1Gb, whereas windows and macintosh operating systems base their calculation on 1024bytes to 1Mb and so that equates to 1024Mb to 1Gb in operating system terms.

so a Gb is actually more than what the memory manufactorer's Gb is, then you also have the amount of space you lose to formatting ontop.I
3.7 usable of a 4Gb drive is normal. i have 9.2 usalbe on my 10Gb second gen ipod

Its a shame trading standards arnt as tuff on storage devices as they are on weights and messures etc.

The fuss that trading standards make on pubs that sell a pint thats not a pint, or if a petrol pump under pumps by a few drops.

I cant understand why they arnt as tuff with storage sizes.

Even thou the nano is 4gb, you still lose quite a useable chunk, it would make sense for storage makers to sell a 4.5 gig, advertise it as a 4 gig so that after formatting, the user has a full 4 gig to play with.

Failing that, instead of advertising 4gb, advertise the ACTUAL useable size, not the size prior to formatting.

I think thats important, more so on a device thats got such a low level of memory as that of the nano in the first place.

Sam

To understand the math, here you go:

'4GB' in marketing speak is 4,000,000,000 bytes. (four billion.)

But, the computer considers 1 GB to be 1024 MB, or (1024 10241024=)1,073,741,824 bytes. (It's because a computer considers '1k' to be 2^10 instead of 10^4)

So if you take that 4*10^9 bytes, and divide it by the 1,073,741,824, you get 3.725 'computer' Gigabytes.

This has been the way storage companies have advertised hard drives pretty much forever. It's how Apple advertises the hard drives in computers, too. And it gets worse each larger increment, because for each 1000, you're losing 2.4 more percent. So 4 'storage Terabytes' is only 3.63 'computer Terabytes'. 4 'storage Petabytes' is only 3.55 'computer Petabytes'. 4 Exabytes = 3.46. 4 Zetabytes = 3.38, and finally, 4 Yottabytes = 3.30. (Sorry, that's all the SI prefixes I know.) But, 4 'storage Kilobytes' is 3.9 'computer Kilobytes', so the 'percentage loss' is less with smaller units.

I just think storage companys need to change the way they advertise memory size.

Storage companys should advertise the Actual End Useable space, after all thats what is important to a person, the useable space, not it is this but after you format you really only have this.

A pint is a pint and gig aint a gig

Its like buying a tin of beans, if it says 250g thats the actual beans, not the can, they cant give you 240g of beans because the can is 250g

I know storage has always been described / advertised that way forever but I think its about time its changed.

Sam,

You've still got what you thought you were getting all along though - 4 billion bytes. It's just your computer displays it a bit differently.

While I know that is true with hard drive storage, I don't think the same holds with memory. You don't buy a Gig DIMM and only get 1000 MB. It wouldn't work. The nano's storage space is still chip memory, so it's based on powers of 2.

Odds are that the 4 GB nano has a REAL 4 GB of storage in it, but that first 0.3 GB is taken up with the OS and file system rather than putting in an additional ROM or additional chip memory to hold those. Just because only 3.7 GB is available doesn't mean the remainder of the memory isn't there and isn't being actively used. Even if the math does work out to be the same.

Doc

You're correct. I think the OS and system stuff is what's taking up about 20+ mb of space. I think there's really 4GB on there. Not like a hard drive...

Hi Bryan

I know how storage works, but their is a lot of people who dont know how it works, I just think it makes it confusing for people who are not aware of how storage works.

I havent bought an ipod nano myself,I would like one but I will wait to see what Rev B of the nano brings.

Sam

Not quite true, Doc. Flash memory is considered 'storage', so it gets marketed just like other (hard drive, CD, floppy,) storage devices.

The iPod update to restore the iPod to original is less than 45 MB for all iPods combined. Not 300MB.

It will also be confusing to them to know that different operating systems will end up formatting the drive to different sizes...hence the reason hard drive manuafacurers don't advertise after-formatting sizes.

lol this is an issue that came up when home pc's hard drives first went over 1GB. Companies get away with rounding up to the closest denomenator of GB for their hard drives. It's just standard law now that if you get a 20GB it's probably around 19GB.

"Not quite true, Doc. Flash memory is considered 'storage', so it gets marketed just like other (hard drive, CD, floppy,) storage devices."

I disagree. Doc is right. Flash memory at it's core is still a memory chip that operates on binary addresses based on powers of 2. If the nano were to be marketed like a hard drive, Apple would have to market it as 4.3 GB.

Chris