Why is my total hard disk capacity much less than advertised?

Question

Why is my total hard disk capacity much less than advertised?

My intel iMac was advertised to have come with a 160GB hard drive. However, the reported capacity is only 149.05GB (I have checked this information in apple system profiler which I have included below)

WDC WD1600JS-40NGB2:

Capacity: 149.05 GB
Model: WDC WD1600JS-40NGB2
Revision: 10.02E04
Serial Number: WD-WCAP01064106
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
OS9 Drivers: No
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 148.73 GB
Available: 82 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /

Now, I know that the actual size of a hard disk is always lesser than reported, but 11GB lesser seems too much, considering that in my old iMac G3 with a 40GB hard disk had a capacity of 38.31GB, I was expecting this to be in the range of 155-156GB. Can someone please tell me if this is a problem only with my computer or does everyone get the same size reported?

iMac Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz 17" Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Apr 8, 2006 5:17 PM

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Answer 1

Stan Yoo

Level 2

245 points

Apr 8, 2006 5:42 PM in response to Sidharth Shekhar

Hi, this may be a math-related thing...

149.05 is about 93% of 160, while 38.31 is about 96% of 40

For percentages, the reduction will become greater as whatever it's a percent of rises. (e.g. 10% of 10 is 1, 10% of 100 is 10, the 100 has a greater reduction)

My HDs are: 76.33, which is 95% of 80 and 28.63, which is 95% of 30. I don't know why your bigger HD would have a slightly greater reduction. Perhaps it may be because 1GB equals 1024MB, and 1MB equals 1024KB?

What's left to say is, don't get too uptight about a small little thing like this. Frankly, 150GB seems too much space for me! 11GB missing can't be too much of an issue. If you tend to use up so much space, then your files might be exceeding 11GB per file.

All this I told you, I just kinda contemplated at the back of my head. I didn't read this anywhere. It's just better than nothing

Hope this helped

peace

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Answer 2

d-mo

Level 3

740 points

Apr 8, 2006 5:59 PM in response to Sidharth Shekhar

Yeah, mine is the same(149.5). In fact, on my other machine---an iMac G5, it is even less at 148.9 GB available.

It most probably has to do with the operating system(OSX) and the preinstalled software (iLife).

Remember, the G3 had an older, less complicated OS and did not come with any of these new iLife Apps.

So, in answer to your question: No, the hard disk space is not a problem with your particular computer, but merely the functions and needs of the new operating package the iMac offers now compared to your older G3...

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Answer 3

Apr 8, 2006 5:47 PM in response to Stan Yoo

Well, I never thought of it that way. Thanks man. Also, I wasn't getting uptight, I was just curious. 150GB is too much space for me as well.

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Answer 4

Jun 30, 2006 8:36 AM in response to d-mo

This is because of the two definitions of "Giga." In common language giga is 1 billion, however in computers giga is 2^30 or 1,073,741,824.

so 149 GB * 1,073,741,824 Bytes/GB = 160,000,000,000 Bytes, present and accounted for.

12" Powerbook

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