SammiP
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: My macbook now has a higher capacity than it did at purchase.

I have not upgraded the memory at all, and the only real upgrade I have done is switching from Leopard to Lion about a month ago. I turned it on today, and it had a 'loading bar' underneath the Apple logo as it started. When the bar was half-full, it dissappeared and my computer booted as normal. This was several hours ago. I turned it on recently, and opened a Finder window. it said that I had 106 Gigabytes available. It has never been this high, and was in the 80's last time I checked. So I open System Profiler, and it says that my capacity is now 160.6 GB.

 

When I bought this computer, it said that the capacity was about 150. I know this for a fact, and it was purchased in Spring '09.

 

Why did it decide to gain more space now?

 

(I should note that when I upgraded to Lion, it freed up a lot of space, but didn't make the overall capacity larger to my knowledge.)

MacBook (13-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 12, 2012 5:19 PM

by noondaywitch,Solvedanswer
noondaywitch noondaywitch
Level 6 (8,147 points)
A:

You say you've gone from Leopard (10.5.x) to Lion (10.7).

 

There are two ways of reporting disk size and available space; Binary (which is the strictly correct method), and decimal.

HD manufacturers use decimal because it makes the disc look bigger.

 

Leopard and previous OSs report the actual disc size as binary, but Apple changed that in Snow Leopard and up so that the reported figures agreed with the manufacturer's descriptions.

 

So HD designated as 160GB by the manufacturer will be reported as such in Lion, but in Leopard and earlier it will be reported as 149GB.

 

Nothing has changed, other than the way the system reports.

Posted on Mar 13, 2012 5:16 AM

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SammiP

Q: My macbook now has a higher capacity than it did at purchase.

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Carolyn Samit,

    Carolyn Samit Carolyn Samit Mar 12, 2012 6:20 PM in response to SammiP
    Level 10 (124,428 points)
    Apple Music
    Mar 12, 2012 6:20 PM in response to SammiP

    Hi ...

     

    Total capacity has to be much higher then 106GB. Memory (RAM) has nothing to do with hard drive space. The total capacity of the drive will never change.

     

    Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon on your Desktop then click Get Info.

     

    Capacity and Avaiable are available in the Get Info panel.

     

    There's a utillty you can use >  OSX Tips Where did my Disk Space go?

     

     

    How Mac OS X and iOS report storage capacity

  • by SammiP,

    SammiP SammiP Mar 12, 2012 6:54 PM in response to Carolyn Samit
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 12, 2012 6:54 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

    nonono, the free space isn't the problem. The confusion I'm having is that it now says my total capacity is 159.18. That's what I get going to Get Info. The exact number seems to flucuate each time I check, but the thing is that the TOTAL capacity used to be 150, and now it is roughly 160. the 106 gigabytes is what was AVAILABLE. Now it reads at 109.39 gigs available, out of 159.18.

     

    I'm mostly worried that something's gone wonky with my computer, and that I may have lost things somehow. There are too many folders for me to go through and check, though.

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Mar 12, 2012 10:22 PM in response to SammiP
    Level 7 (32,347 points)
    iPad
    Mar 12, 2012 10:22 PM in response to SammiP

    Is this your model:

     

    http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/stats/macbook-core-2-duo-2.13-whit e-13-mid-2009-nvidia-specs.html

     

    If so, the hard drive total capacity was/is 160 GB according to the specs (and , counting for the way they figure those out, it was probably 159.x GB).

     

    The available number will always fluctuate - you download something, it takes up room on your hard drive; you delete something, you gain space.

  • by noondaywitch,Solvedanswer

    noondaywitch noondaywitch Mar 13, 2012 5:16 AM in response to SammiP
    Level 6 (8,147 points)
    Mar 13, 2012 5:16 AM in response to SammiP

    You say you've gone from Leopard (10.5.x) to Lion (10.7).

     

    There are two ways of reporting disk size and available space; Binary (which is the strictly correct method), and decimal.

    HD manufacturers use decimal because it makes the disc look bigger.

     

    Leopard and previous OSs report the actual disc size as binary, but Apple changed that in Snow Leopard and up so that the reported figures agreed with the manufacturer's descriptions.

     

    So HD designated as 160GB by the manufacturer will be reported as such in Lion, but in Leopard and earlier it will be reported as 149GB.

     

    Nothing has changed, other than the way the system reports.

  • by SammiP,

    SammiP SammiP Mar 13, 2012 5:34 AM in response to noondaywitch
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 13, 2012 5:34 AM in response to noondaywitch

    Okay, thanks. That makes sense. I'm still not sure where the extra 20 or so available came from, with my not deleting anything, but that will be a matter for another day. Thank you!