Who else has realized that the size written on pen drives or hard drives is not the exact size you see when you slot it into a computer? The actual size is often less than the size indicated on the label.
What accounts for that?
There are a few reasons, but the main one is the unit of measurement.
How the manufacturer calculates the size is different from how the computer (operating system) calculates size.
To the manufacturers, 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes.
To the computer, 1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes.
Let’s demonstrate this with example:
Manufacturer’s Calculation:
To convert 500 billion bytes to gigabytes, the manufacturer will divide the 500,000,000,000 by 1,000,000,000.
And that gives 500.
So, 500GB will be written on the drive’s label.
Operating System’s Calculation:
To convert the same 500 billion bytes to gigabytes, the computer will divide the 500,000,000,000 by 1,073,741,824.
And that gives 465.66 (or 465 if you ignore the decimal part).
This is why your seller will tell you the drive is 500GB but if you slot it into your laptop, you will only see something like 465GB.
Now, the question is:
Why does the computer divide by 1,073,741,824 and not by 1,000,000,000 as the manufacturers do?
The Pen rive Size dilemma