[pb_soon]

I've got a stock 15" 1.25 with the 80GB drive, or at least that's what the specs say. When I go into Disk Utility (for example), it reports the disk as having 74.5GB as capacity. Where's the rest of the 5 or so GB? Not that I'm in any disk space shortage, but just wanted to know where the rest of the disk has been allocated to?

I can see in brackets the capacity as being 80,025,423,872 bytes. I'm hoping it's not a marketing move to just convert this number to 80GB assuming that there is actuall 1000 bytes in a KB instead of 1024?

[EvanV]

Different ways of measuring. My Dell has 120 GB, but it actually has 111. My old computer had 27 GB, but really only 23.5 or something.

[pb_soon]

I understand that some hardware platforms and some operating system will actually use portions of the disk for overheads (including bad block relocation), but 5GB seems a little excessive.

[rmongold]

Originally posted by pb_soon:
I've got a stock 15" 1.25 with the 80GB drive, or at least that's what the specs say. When I go into Disk Utility (for example), it reports the disk as having 74.5GB as capacity. Where's the rest of the 5 or so GB? Not that I'm in any disk space shortage, but just wanted to know where the rest of the disk has been allocated to?

I can see in brackets the capacity as being 80,025,423,872 bytes. I'm hoping it's not a marketing move to just convert this number to 80GB assuming that there is actuall 1000 bytes in a KB instead of 1024?

Actually, I think you've hit the nail on the head with that last paragraph. If you look at any marketing materials Apple puts out, it indicates that 1 GB = 1 billion bytes. Not exactly accurate, but easier for the average Joe to compute. Add to that the overhead taken by the file system (which is relatively negligible compared to the overall size of the drive), and you'll never see a true 80 GB out of an 80 GB drive.

[mrgaskell]

Go in to System Profiler. It breaks down how it reports HD size.

[Drakino]

As others have said, the 80GB number is indeed the parketung number, pulled from the total number of bytes on the disk / 1000 and not 1024.

There is a lawsuit about this issue, and Apple is named in it. Read more here.

[krux`]

Actual formatted capacity on any harddrive is less than specified, and its the same for all harddrives, even my ipod's

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by pb_soon:
I can see in brackets the capacity as being 80,025,423,872 bytes. I'm hoping it's not a marketing move to just convert this number to 80GB assuming that there is actuall 1000 bytes in a KB instead of 1024?

That is EXACTLY what it is.

Actual capacity:
80,025,423,872/1024/1024/1024 = 74.53

Marketing blabla:
80,025,423,872/1000/1000/1000 = 80.03

-s*

[fibroptikl]

To get the actual useable amount of space do the following.

Advertised Space x .07 = X

Advertise Space - X = Useable Space

[piracy]

Before someone gets any ideas, it is NOT just Apple that does this. It is ALL drive and computer manufacturers. (And no, Apple shouldn't "take the high road" and "tell the truth", because the *drives themselves* come from their manufacturers as "80 GB" drives. Apple would be stupid to relabel it. All they can do is offer the disclaimer that 1 GB is considered 1 billion bytes by that measure.)

Just like the old CRT monitor crap. It got to the point where the size a monitor claimed to be didn't correspond to anything about the size of the monitor at all.