Whats the real size of a 1TB drive?

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Level 4

2,752 points

Whats the real size of a 1TB drive?

Hello,

Whats the real storage size of a 1TB drive? I just formatted a 1TB drive in Disk Utility using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the disc is running about 931.5. Where does the rest of the storage go?

thanks

iMac 24", 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB memory, 1TB HD, 23" Dell 2nd monitor, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 750GB HD, 250GB HD, externals, Ipod Touch 2nd G, audio-technica ATH-AD700

Posted on May 17, 2009 10:12 PM

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Answer 1

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

May 17, 2009 10:42 PM in response to WarriorAnt

-> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1867 (this article is for iPods but this info applies to all disk drives)
"Why the difference? Most hard disk manufacturers measure disk size this way: 1 MB = 1 million bytes (1000 * 1000). A 4 GB disk, therefore, is one that holds 4 billion bytes. Computers, including Windows computers, Macintosh computers and iPod, measure disk size this way: 1 MB = 1 048 576 bytes (1024 * 1024). The difference in these two calculations is what causes the drive to appear as 3.7 GB on a computer, but actually be a 4 billion byte disk."

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