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missing HD space

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:37 am
by vchris
I just bought a 300gb Seagate HD. It's installed and working great except there is only 280gb available when it says other places I have 300gb. BIOS says 300gb, another tool from seagate says just a bit more than 300gb... I know the file system takes space but 20gb????

Is this normal?!

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:42 am
by feyd
yes.

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:45 am
by vchris
hmmm ok :?

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:48 am
by Chris Corbyn
What filesystem are you using?

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 10:01 am
by MrPotatoes
Note: 1 MB = 1,048,576 Bytes; 1 GB = 1,024 MB

just an FYI. i hate it

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 10:18 am
by vchris
I'm using NTFS

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:26 am
by feyd
NTFS has a large protective section built into the allocation tables. In XP's NTFS, NTFS 5, there's even more added data kept in the tables above previous versions.

It should be noted that most, if not all, hard drive manufacturers list the size as unformated capacity and that they note that formated, the size will be smaller.

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 12:19 pm
by vchris
Alright so this is totally normal then...

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 12:52 pm
by MrPotatoes
totally.

i've never been happy about it either. i think some people tried to have the manufacturers actually stop claiming those high numbers

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:20 pm
by vchris
Funny because when I called the shop where I bought my HD from they also said it was normal and it was kind of a rip off lol

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:34 pm
by Chris Corbyn
What do you mean a rip off? The hard disk does have a capacity as specified. The space taken up is not to do with the hardware, it's like feyd says, the filesystem (software level).

Try formatting it as ReiserFS, Ext3, FAT32 and NTFS and see what happens to the free space each time. The manufacturer can't make the drive morph into a bigger drive because some of the space is used by the filesystem itself.

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 2:00 pm
by vchris
Rip off because you buy a 300gb but you don't get 300gb. With NTFS you get 280gb... Kinda sucks if you ask me... How can a file system take 20gb of space?

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:08 pm
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
How does a filesystem know how and where to find allocated data blocks for all files across a magnetised disk with a few gazillion 0/1 charged areas?

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:40 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:How does a filesystem know how and where to find allocated data blocks for all files across a magnetised disk with a few gazillion 0/1 charged areas?
My Point exactly. A filesystem is essentially a database. A hardisk by itself doesn't know anything (ok, it knows how to check itself for basic errors and how to initialize).

By the way, NTFS isn't known for being the most efficient in terms of storage space. Try some other filesystems on other operating systems and it might make more sense what we're talking about.

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:08 pm
by vchris
Well I only have win XP so I guess NTFS will do.