30GB iPOD Capacity issue

This is normal. The GB's that you are "missing" are actually holding the iPod's operating system. Without this, your iPod would be useless... unless you needed a paperweight.

CG

The GB's that you are "missing" are actually holding the iPod's operating system
No, this is not accurate. The iPod OS only takes up a few megabytes... not 2.2 gigabytes.

The difference is due to the way hard drive manufacturers measure capacity, and how it is reported by the operating system.

Hard Drive manufacturers will consider a gigabyte to be 1 billion bytes (1,000,000,000 bytes) so a 30GB iPod has a capacity of 30,000,000,000 bytes.

Since your computer "speaks" binary, not decimal... a binary gigabyte is 1024 10241024 or 1,073,741,824 bytes.
30,000,000,000 / 1,073,741,824 = 27.9GB.

The iPod OS uses up a very small amount of space... leaving you about 27.8GB free for your content.

This happens with all hard drives.

Here's why;

"In iPod's About menu, the hard disk size is reported as slightly less than the technical specifications for the iPod. The same is true if you connect iPod to your computer in disk mode look at the info or properties window for the disk.
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."


from;
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61131


Cheers!
-Bryan

You're welcome, but it's unfortunate that you decided to mark the wrong post as Solved.

The post you marked solved provides the wrong answer to your question, which could potentially mislead other viewers with similar issues.