Computer Makers Sued Over Hard Drive Size

FPCat writes "Finally, some one is doing something about one of my pet peeves. It seems a group of people are suing Apple, Dell, Gateway, HP, and others for misleading consumers about hard disk sizes. About time someone spoke up and said '1000 MB != 1 GB'" It's not much of a mystery to anyone who's up on industry practices, but it's similar to the way graphic displays are sized, cereal boxes are filled, and so on. Andy Rooney could have a field day with this one.

Unnecessary confusion

[tarquin_fim_bim]

In SI units [ex.ac.uk] (which most civilised counties use) M means mega which is defined as 10^6, i.e. 1000000 , it is only the computer industry that deems K (1000) to equal 1024 which it does not, then extrapolates this to give 1M = 1024 x 1024. This is absolute rubbish, a different system of quantification should be used when referring to binary powers, as the borrowing of those from SI is clearly misleading.

SI definitions

[Chmarr]

Actually, 1000MB == 1GB...

you're probably thinking 1024MiB = 1GiB

If someone is suing Apple, etc, over the definition of 'mega', then they're going to lose.

Unfortunately 1 GB = 1000 MB

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to the confusion between base 10 and base 2, the base 2 version of MB is now MiB and the base 2 version of GB is now GiB. Confusing but thats how it is.

apple says

[photoblur]

According to Apple's website [apple.com]

1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.

it's in the fine print at the bottom of the above linked page

Re:Unnecessary confusion

[Stavr0]

Which is why they invented KiB, MiB, GiB [pcguide.com] which are 2^10 2^20 and 2^30.

Gibibyte -- still getting used to that one ...

Re:Unnecessary confusion

[jpallas]

This units issue has been covered before. [slashdot.org] There's even an actual standard [nist.gov].

Re:Fine Print

[OverlordQ]

It's already there on every hard drive box, it says something along the lines of "The Manufacturer considers 1GB to equal 1000MB"

Re:Unnecessary confusion

[Aglassis]

You said: This is absolute rubbish, a different system of quantification should be used when referring to binary powers, as the borrowing of those from SI is clearly misleading.

There is a system that isn't used by many people. For example, it uses kibibyte [wolfram.com] for 2^10 bytes and mebibyte [wolfram.com] for 2^20 bytes (and so on).

"after formatting"

[Anonymous Coward]

:It would be better for Hard Drive manufacturers to quote the size after formatting and installing a filesystem to avoid confusion.

This would depend on the file system installed, and the settings of this file system. (journal, etc)

They may be able to give quotes on the simple FAT filesystem, but anything more than that would be impossible, even the mainstream NTFS filesystem.

From NIST...

[wirelessbuzzers]

From NIST [nist.gov]

Unit Prefix Abbreviation
2^10 kibi Ki
2^20 mebi Mi
2^30 gibi Gi
2^40 tebi Ti
2^50 pebi Pi
2^60 exbi Ei

Examples and comparisons with SI prefixes

1 Kibit = 2^10 bit = 1024 bit
1 kbit = 10^3 bit = 1000 bit
1 MiB = 2^20 B = 1 048 576 B
1 MB = 10^6 B = 1 000 000 B
1 GiB = 2^30 B = 1 073 741 824 B
1 GB = 10^9 B = 1 000 000 000 B

In particular, 20 GB = 18.6 GiB. So, they're telling the truth, albeit in a not-so-honest way; it's really the disk info page that's lying.

It's also worth noting that EXT2 and some other UNIX-based filesystems reserve a certain percent of the space; this makes their available capacity smaller for non-root users.

Kibi, Mebi, Gibi, etc are NOT SI standards

[fredrikj]

A lot of people here have claimed that the *bi prefixes are SI standards. They aren't. They're IEC standards.

Re:About TIME!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... let's see:

• Dell [One gigabyte (GB) equals one thousand megabytes (MB).]
• Apple [1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.]
• IBM [GB means 1 thousand million bytes when referring to hard drive capacity. Accessible capacity may vary]
• HP [GB (Gigabyte) - 1024 megabytes, 2^10 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.]

...looks like most of the industry learned their lesson from the monitor fiasco a few years ago.
Now, if you'll forgive me, I'll get back to looking at my 19.96-inch monitor and spinning my 73.47-times-2^10-times-2^10-times-8-bit (post-formatted capacity, using a single ext3 partition, your results may vary, not valid in Utah) hard-disk drive.

Re:SI definitions

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

For networking, the industry defines 1000 MB = 1 GB

Re:Unnecessary confusion

[E_elven]

The problem here is that 'kilo' doesn't mean 10^3 (or anything^3, to that.) It means 1000. Therefore, a 'kilobyte' is a thousand bytes, or '11111101000' in binary.

Re:Step in the right direction

[arose]

As bits and bytes aren't SI units they have nothing to do with "proper SI"

30 gig iPod

[bort27]

Yes, hard drive sizes are misleading, but a lot of new devices just plain lie.

For example, I recently discovered that if you buy an Apple iPod that says "30 GB" on the box, and power it up, the device will say: "Capacity: 27.8 GB. Available: 27.8 GB."

By my math, 3x10^9 B = 2929687 KB = 2861 MB = 27.9 GB. So even with all this number trickery, the iPod's reported storage is actually about a hundred megs below the "3 with a whole buncha zeros after it" mark. That's another album or two of music, on top of the 25-30 extra albums that you'd be able to fit on the device if it could actually hold 30 GB.

It's great that someone has finally caught onto this little scam, and is raising awareness about it.

Bort.

Re:Dell? -DISMISSED-

[Mundocani]

As a moderately interesting and way-off-topic sidenote, those weird cross things are called "daggers" in typography circles.

This Roman Meal Bakery thought you'd like to know :-)

Re:Whats next? 56k!=56k/s?

[eht]

Even IBM doesn't make hard drives anymore, they sold everythign off to Hitachi. Even support for IBM hard drives have been sold off to Hitachi it looks like.

/. article here [slashdot.org]

Re:Sue the auto manufacturers as well?

[_avs_007]

If you were going to sue the automakers, at least sue them for making the Speedomoter and/or fuel gage inaccurate.

I read an article Consumer Reports a while back saying the european makers are the worst when it comes to the speedo reading a speed that is higher than what you are traveling. I remember it saying that for post 1995 cars, GM had the most accurate speedos with dead-on readings at 60 and overstated by 1mph at 100mph, followed by Toyota and Honda which overstated the speed by 2 at 60mph and 5 mph at 100, with BMW being the worst by overstating by 10mph at 60 and 100.

And pretty much everyone understates how much gas you actually have left.

Imagine the pain that would happen if one day cars actually ran out of gas when the needle hit the E?

Re:ads

[arkanes]

Most of the boxes have fine print them already that says "1 megabyte is 1 million bytes" or something similar. At least the ones that I've seen.

This BYTES

[MegaManInferno]

You have to understand that all the storage terms have the word BYTES on the end, that would make them part of the binary system of 2s, NOT 10s.

Re:This has always irritated me.

[aclarke]

They are officially 2"x4" before they are planed. Once they are planed (smoothed out if anyone is actually reading this and doesn't know what I'm talking about) they end up smaller than 2x4.

As another poster mentioned, if you buy rough-cut lumber you should get closer to the advertised size.

CD/DVD capacities

[David Jao]

4. For CD-R, DVD-R/w, the industry defines 1024 MB = 1 GB

No! CD-R uses binary prefixes and DVD-R uses decimal prefixes. Actually, in reality, both CD-R and DVD-R capacity labels are inaccurate under either the binary or the decimal interpretation, but you have to really be splitting hairs to notice.

The exact expected capacity of normal sized CD-Rs (not counting overburning, yadda yadda) is as follows:

• For 74 minute CD-Rs, the capacity is 74*60*44100*2*2*2048/2352 = 681984000 bytes, or 650.390625 binary MiB (exactly, no roundoff error).
• For 80 minute CD-Rs, the capacity is 80*60*44100*2*2*2048/2352 = 737280000 bytes, or 703.125 binary MiB (again, this figure is exact, not rounded off).

For DVD+/-R[W] media, the exact capacity is 4697620480 bytes, or just shy of 4.7 decimal GB. The capacity of a DVD-R is certainly nowhere near 4.7 binary GB.

Apple will have no problem.

[Xenex]

At the bottom of each [apple.com] one [apple.com] of [apple.com] their [apple.com] product [apple.com] pages [apple.com], it states:

1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.

Re:Ummm...

[connsmythe96]

giga- is not an adjective. It is a prefix.

Ignorant customers not deceptive marketing

[illumina+us]

claiming that their advertising deceptively overstates the true capacity of their hard drives.

The companies marketing the drives and systems clearly state the capacity in Gigabytes. This means 1000 megabytes. While many customers believe that Gigabyte means 1024 Megabytes. This is not true. Refer to the list below.

1024bytes = 1KiB (kibibit)
1024KiB = 1MiB (mebibyte)
1024MiB = 1GiB (gibibyte)
1024GiB = 1TiB (tebibyte)


1000 bytes = 1KB (kilobyte)
1000KB = 1MB (megabyte)
1000MB = 1GB (gigabyte)
1000GB = 1TB (terabyte)

Therefore, the users are simply ignorant and the lawsuit should be thrown out. Yet I do feel that they should make the capicity in MiB, GiB, TiB, etc. Oh, and OS's are programed that 1024 MB = GB instead of 1000 MB = GB. So that would fool people too, maybe we should all sue Microsoft, Linus, and ATT.

Re:Ignorant customers not deceptive marketing

[Elf-friend]

Uh, no. That is a suggested resolution, but has never been accepted as industry standard. From the beginning, 1 KB was 1024, and so on. Much more recently, certain individuals, who felt this should not be so, suggested the "kibibyte" as a solution. However, this has never been widely accepted, and certainly not enough so to be considered correct.

Re:ads

[xsbellx]

The HD companies are arguibly more correct in this case as they are using the definition that is used everywhere else.

No! They are not even close to being in the same galaxy as "more correct". Within the context of the computer world,

• 1K = 1024 or 2^10
• 1M = 1048576 or 2^20
• 1G = 1073741824 or 2^30
• 1T = 1099511627776 or 2^40

In case you hadn't noticed, hard drives are typically used and marketed within the context of the "computer world". Had I purchased a hard drive to use as part of a support for holding up my car or as part of a wind chime or as a hat, I would expect the magnitude prefix to reflect the SI prefixes (1G = 10^9).

However, since I, like most, purchased a hard drive to use within a computer, I expect the magnitude prefixes to accurately reflect the context of use, not some marketing scheme.

Re:1000 MB is equal to 1 GB

[Elf-friend]

...here on Earth a thousand million is a billion.

Unless you're in Europe, where a billion is one million millions. A trillion there is one million billions (not one thousand), and so on with quardrillions (one million trillions) and the rest. A milliard is one thousand millions there. Thats why the SI quantifiers are defined in terms of powers of ten, not in millions and billions.

Re:It's not the size of your disk

[minektur]

This is why you should always make your logical raid volumes 1% smaller (approximately) than the max disk size. So that when you replace the disk and get short-changed by the manufacturer, you can still get by.

Yes this is easier with software-based RAID, but can be done with better hardware raid controllers.

Re:It's not the size of your disk

[kasperd]

This is why you should always make your logical raid volumes 1% smaller (approximately)

There is abut 7% difference between 2^30 and 10^9. I have seen disks being exactly 80*10^9 bytes, I believe they were sold as 80GB disks. If you find an 80GB disk which is really 80GB, you will have to leave 7% unused, that is 5.5GB waste.

Re:ads

[yanestra]

withing the context of the computer world

Bullshit.

• 1 k = 1e3
• 1 M = 1e6
• 1 G = 1e9
• 1 T = 1e12

But:

• 1 KiB = 1024
• 1 MiB = 1024^2
• 1 GiB = 1024^3
• 1 TiB = 1024^4

This was standardized years ago and is valid for all people*, not only engineers on one side or computer geeks on the other.

* = all people does not include citizens of the United States, because the U.S. have not yet introduced the internationally standardized metric system

Re:CD/DVD capacities

[David Jao]

I am talking only about the ISO format, of course. I think restricting attention to the ISO format is a very reasonable thing to do when evaluating manufacturers' claims of blank media data capacity, because these claims are based upon the assumption that you will be using the ISO format.

My point was that even in this routine context (namely, normal usage of the blank media employing the standard ISO formats), the advertised data capacities of blank optical disc media are:

1. Sometimes given in binary megabytes, sometimes in decimal megabytes
2. Never exactly accurate no matter which measurements you use, binary or decimal
3. Sometimes overstated, and sometimes understated

Re:ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard drives are circular, so there's really very little benefit to making them contain 2^3n bits.

Except that sector sizes are 2^9 ...

Nothing new here ...

[gordguide]

Computers are complicated, expensive, and filled with jargon and (especially) numbers. Not confusing enough? Let's sue so that 80 GB can now become "78.96 GB; formatted capacity less".

Yeah, I know that you can find that out already; but if this guy wins, it will be in BIG letters. Ugly box gets uglier, overnight, but hey, We're Informed.

I know it's annoying. But it's not deceptive, when everybody in the industry does the exact same thing. If this guy actually gets a settlement, enterprising Slashdotters can get into the action:

Sue the TV makers. How come it says right on the box in big letters "27 inch TV" and in little letters "26 inches in Canada"? Does the TV shrink in some bizzare Quantum fashion if it gets booted off in Vancouver instead of Seattle? No, they're lying to you, but they tell the truth to those damn Canadians. Sue them.

My car says it has a 5.7 litre engine, but I find out (ah, the fine print) that it's not really that exact size. What's worse, every car maker does the same thing. Sue 'em.

My boom box and my car stereo and my new 27", no, wait, 26" TV all say they put out 100 watts per channel, but later I find out that they're exempt from the FTC rules (glue a handle on 'em and they're "portable devices") about power specifications, and they really only put out 10 if you measure them like the law says real home stereos have to be measured. Sorry, can't sue 'em, those are the rules the FTC came up with when somebody sued 'em 25 years ago. Sorry.

Anyway, there's lots of these kinds of small annoyances, but consumers have to educate themselves. If everybody in a given product category is consistent, it's not such a big deal. If being annoying was grounds for a suit, we'd all spend the rest of our lives in court.

Re:While we're bitching about misleading ads,

[Inda]

I'm so bloody sick of all these deceptive practices. Just like gasoline, $1.49 and 9/10. Like you can buy gas in 9/10's of a cent at a time. It's a RIP OFF scheme. You lose 1/10 of a cent each gallon you buy. They GAIN 1/10 of a cent each gallon you buy. Over the long haul they haul tons of $$$$ to the bank..

Don't talk bollox man. If you buy 10 gallons it costs $14.99. You've lost nothing.

Re:ads

[triiiple]

People generally understand that Giga means billion, and that billion is a thousand million. Anything else is confusing.

That's milliard, thank you very much.

\Mil`liard"\, n. [F., from mille, mil, thousand, L. mille.] A thousand millions.

Re:ads

[moonlit2]

Tha is bullshit. There is no uniform standard.

For example:

- When talking about transmission speeds on synchronous communications (e.g. ethernet), the 1000 multiplier is used, so: 100 megabit/s = 100.000.000 bit/s.

- When talking about file sizes, the 1024 multiplier is used, so:
26205739087 bytes =~ 24,4 GB.

When talking about hard drives, most hard drive manufacturers use the 1000 multiplier, not he 1024. This makes the number in front of "GB" look bigger than if you use 1024, perhaps thet's why.

Anyway, nobody has promised ANYONE that you would get 80*1024*1024*1024 bytes when buying a 80GB drive, they only promised 80.000.000.000 bytes, which is what you're getting.

So I don't see the point of this lawsuit. It's bogus, right?