Hard drive question

[lekt0r]

My sisters computer has a Quantum 20.4 GB HD in it and she called tech support and they told her the hard drive it was shipped with was a Quantum 20.56 HD. Is it the same HD or not? My reason for asking is that I am now being accused of stealing her HD and switching it and. My HD also reads one number and tech support tells me a slightly different number. I know its the same HD but how can I explain it to her that its the same.

[cross]

Usually when you format a new drive, it will show up slightly smaller then what it should. I'm not sure why this happens, mabey some one else knows why, but i know it DOES happen. I work on formatting drives all the time.

[lekt0r]

the actual label on the HD says 20.4 though

[-DaRK-RaiDeR-]

lekt0r,

Just tell her that if she wants you can switch disks to show her you don't care what disk you have. Anyway both disks are the same capacity almost. If she chooses to change then explain her the whole and long process you have to follow to change her stuff to the other disk and vice versa. Then she should realize that there's no way you could have wanted to switch disks and going to all that tiring process just to gain a couple of more megas of hard drive space. :D

Hope it helps,

DKRR

[cross]

hrm, thats different then. Not sure what to tell ya on that one. My guess is that they (tech support) dont have the right information. I bought a compaq a few years back, and my HD crashed. I sent it in and they replaced it with what they said I had to begin with. They sent me a 30gig drive in place of a 20 gig drive. Go figure. Probably just an inventory mix up.

[DeadAddict]

They are both the same a harddrive is a harddrive it doesn't matter which drive is hers and which one is yours. A 20 gig harddrive is the same size as a 20.4 and 20.56 GB they are both the same but are they the same speed? that is one way you can tell them apart

[cire]

i don't think this is the issue with you because the 2 sizes are pretty close but there is a prefix conflict with hard drive, memory, operating system, etc. companies. with computers, prefixes like kilo, mega, giga, etc are measured in binary while outside of the computer world its measure in demical. for example kilo means 10^3 (which equals 1,000) but with computers kilo usually means 2^10 (which equals 1,024). The problem is that sometimes companies aren't consistent so if western digitital uses one form of prefixes and ms windows uses the other form windows will give a different value for your hard drive then what may be labeled on it. i remember reading a nice article on this somewhere but i couldn't find it.

[cutty]

20.56 - 20.4 = 0.16 GB. Just do the math for her. Tell her it's not worth the swap and they are pretty much the same size. These days 0.16 gigs are hardly anything. Usually however, this problem seems to occur since it has happened to me on two different systems I have ordered.

I hope you guys stop fighting over 0.16 gigs. Good luck.

Guidance...

[nihil]

Cire is right about the 1000/1024 difference, but the math does not explain your difference, it looks too small to me.

I think it might be a "tecnician speak" kind of thing............you know, like mechanics...........this is a 2 litre car when it is actually 1997ccs.........sorry too late in the evening to do that in cubic inches for ya :)

The drive needs a bit of space for its own index/boot sector whatever...............I suspect that the 20.56 is "raw" space, and the 20.4 is available or usable space?

Anyway.....why did she call technical support in the first place? Also, the drive manufacturer site must have tech specs, have you looked there?

Stay cool

[bballad]

I beleive Nihil is correct. Also remember HD makers fudge the size numbers (do to bad sectors in shipping and what not) I have seen drives from 21 GB to 18.5 GB all labled 20 GB, the label probably just rounded up on the size so they could charge more for it.

[Ghost_25inf]

I also believe that there is a 8mb cache that wont show up after you install windows so if you are missing a few megs then thats your answer.

[Zetaphor]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=#post) by cross
Usually when you format a new drive, it will show up slightly smaller then what it should. I'm not sure why this happens, mabey some one else knows why, but i know it DOES happen. I work on formatting drives all the time.

I am not 100% sure, but after screwing with windows partions from my Linux disc, I think the slightly smaller space is used for the swap file. The swap file is a part of the HD that is used to store temporary info for processing, I am also think thats what actual file processing goes through.