120gb = 111gb?

[wbg_id]

I just got my new Dell computer up and running today. When I purchased the computer it said it has a 120gb harddrive. WHen I check it out it says I have 108gb remaining and 111gb total. What happened to the other 9gb? When we are talking 9 out of 120 that doesnt sound like much, but when you consider my old computer had a 4 gb Hdd, I lost over 2 hdd worth of space! Is this some rounding up game Dell does to make it sound bigger than it is?

[Budfred]

It is a rounding game the hard drive companies and Windoze play. Windoze measure in gigabytes of 1024megabytes (if I remember the numbers correctly) and the hard drive maker measure 1000megabytes for a gigabyte. This means that you seem to lose a whole bunch of room on a large drive, but you actually still have the 120,000,000,000 bytes that you bought....

[HeadachesAbound]

It's also got something to do with the actual formatting of the drive. I don't quite remember what it is that causes it but when you format the drive you will lose a certain amount of the drive space. 9 on a 120 sounds about right so I wouldn't worry too much.

[pentachris]

Actually, to blow your mind a little bit more, hard drive manufacturers figure about 953.67 "true" megabytes per gigabyte. They say there are 1,000,000,000 bytes in a gigabyte. A "true" megabyte is 1024 kilobytes, and a "true" kilobyte is 1024 bytes.

It's kind of like trying to unravel a giant cable knit sweater, and someone keeps knitting, and knitting, and knitting, and knitting.... :rolleyes: :D