Anyone annoyed by SSD being smaller than advertised?

[JodyK]

OK gotta rant for a second. I have looked at the capacity of every iPod, iPod touch, iPhone and iPad that I have owned and none of them had the advertised size space capacities.

Example my wives 16GB 3GS says 14.3GB, my 16GB iPhone 4 has 14GB even (12 1/2 % short!!!!!!) and my 64GB iPad 3G has 59.2GB.

NOW I broke down and bought a 11 inch MBA 1.4 with 64GB storage and what do you know IT'S SHORT!! 60.32GB

5.75% short!

I have let this slide on my mobile devices. I didn't really care on the iPods, iPad as I way over purchased there and I am a little more mad about the iPhones. This is a computer if anything advertise it as a 60GB and under promise and over deliver.

I know how sensitive people can get over things like this. I am honestly surprised this hasn't came up in a media buzz / class action sort of a way. I am not sure I am class action type mad but am greatly upset / disappointed that this can continue to be the norm (say its X then it is 5-13% less).

FLAME on people. Tell me how it's not a big deal. Tell me how stupid I am for bringing it up. Tell me they are all over provisioned.

 

[paolo-]

OK gotta rant for a second. I have looked at the capacity of every iPod, iPod touch, iPhone and iPad that I have owned and none of them had the advertised size space capacities.

Example my wives 16GB 3GS says 14.3GB, my 16GB iPhone 4 has 14GB even (12 1/2 % short!!!!!!) and my 64GB iPad 3G has 59.2GB.

NOW I broke down and bought a 11 inch MBA 1.4 with 64GB storage and what do you know IT'S SHORT!! 60.32GB

5.75% short!

I have let this slide on my mobile devices. I didn't really care on the iPods, iPad as I way over purchased there and I am a little more mad about the iPhones. This is a computer if anything advertise it as a 60GB and under promise and over deliver.

I know how sensitive people can get over things like this. I am honestly surprised this hasn't came up in a media buzz / class action sort of a way. I am not sure I am class action type mad but am greatly upset / disappointed that this can continue to be the norm (say its X then it is 5-13% less).

FLAME on people. Tell me how it's not a big deal. Tell me how stupid I am for bringing it up. Tell me they are all over provisioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte

 

[spinnerlys]

It's especially strange since Snow Leopard uses the base 10 to report file and HDD sizes, thus 64,000,000,000 bytes are 64GB and not 59.6GB like all the other OSs report, as they use base 2 reporting.

http://guides.macrumors.com/Hard_Drive_Size_Discrepancy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte

Snow Leopard disregards the GibiByte.

 

[Corndog5595]

All your mobile devices are marketed in MB/GB, but Windows (and Mac OS 10.5 and lower) calculate things as MiB/GiB but label them as MB/GB. If you are on Snow Leopard, drive sizes should be accurate to manufacturer specifications.

Also, it's formatted, so that uses up some space. Imagine opening up your MBA to find out its memory isn't partitioned

 

[Scippy]

It's especially strange since Snow Leopard uses the base 10 to report file and HDD sizes, thus 64,000,000,000 bytes are 64GB and not 59.6GB like all the other OSs report, as they use base 2 reporting.

http://guides.macrumors.com/Hard_Drive_Size_Discrepancy




Snow Leopard disregards the GibiByte.

That is because apple finally changed their calculating system so it would more accurately represent the amount of GB's you are actually getting. Like you said, they switched to base 10.

 

[JodyK]

OK if I take your replies at face value. Then the % that they are off would be uniform across different platforms. I am 5.75% on a 64GB ssd in the MBA but 12.5% off in a 16GB iPhone 4.

 

[wirelessmacuser]

Not annoyed at all - It's normal boys and girls.

Time for those who _are_ surprised to learn about storage, how it's calculated, and how much is used by the factory pre-load of OS X and Included Software.

Then suddenly, it will all make sense to you...

 

[rkmac]

OK if I take your replies at face value. Then the % that they are off would be uniform across different platforms. I am 5.75% on a 64GB ssd in the MBA but 12.5% off in a 16GB iPhone 4.

If you are reading the iPhone 4 space out of iTunes, then it is the actual amount minus the phones operating system (iOS). That stuff actually takes up space by the way

 

[Scippy]

OK if I take your replies at face value. Then the % that they are off would be uniform across different platforms. I am 5.75% on a 64GB ssd in the MBA but 12.5% off in a 16GB iPhone 4.

No

"The difference between units based on SI and binary prefixes increases as a semi-logarithmic (linear-log) function—for example, the SI kilobyte value is nearly 98% of the kibibyte, a megabyte is under 96% of a mebibyte, and a gigabyte is just over 93% of a gibibyte value. This means that a 300 GB (279 GiB) hard disk is indicated only as 279 GB. As storage sizes increase and larger units are used, this difference becomes even more pronounced. Some legal challenges have been waged over this confusion such as a suit against Western Digital.[5][6] Western Digital settled the challenge and added explicit disclaimers to products that the usable capacity may differ from the advertised capacity."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

 

[JodyK]

Also, it's formatted, so that uses up some space. Imagine opening up your MBA to find out its memory isn't partitioned

I understand and that is a good point. I formatted a 500GB 7200 RPM drive in my MBP and it was at 499.76 after that. It was close to being right on the money. It is .24 off or .00048%!

Explain that one!

This is in a Apple Product 15 inch MBP, Apple shipped drive, Apple OS.

If Apple knows that all their flash drive stuff comes short OR shows short according to you guys then why would they claim a number they can't show?

 

[runnin17]

Is this really a topic????

I am forever amazed at the inability of people to use google

 

[elwood58]

OK gotta rant for a second. I have looked at the capacity of every iPod, iPod touch, iPhone and iPad that I have owned and none of them had the advertised size space capacities.

Example my wives 16GB 3GS says 14.3GB, my 16GB iPhone 4 has 14GB even (12 1/2 % short!!!!!!) and my 64GB iPad 3G has 59.2GB.

NOW I broke down and bought a 11 inch MBA 1.4 with 64GB storage and what do you know IT'S SHORT!! 60.32GB

5.75% short!

I have let this slide on my mobile devices. I didn't really care on the iPods, iPad as I way over purchased there and I am a little more mad about the iPhones. This is a computer if anything advertise it as a 60GB and under promise and over deliver.

I know how sensitive people can get over things like this. I am honestly surprised this hasn't came up in a media buzz / class action sort of a way. I am not sure I am class action type mad but am greatly upset / disappointed that this can continue to be the norm (say its X then it is 5-13% less).

FLAME on people. Tell me how it's not a big deal. Tell me how stupid I am for bringing it up. Tell me they are all over provisioned.

This is either a post based on profound ignorance, or you are actually trying to start a flame war over nothing. I get your comments on portable devices, but your sig lists an impressive list of "Pro" gear from Apple, for you to just now be figuring out the logic behind drive capacity reporting.

 

[spinnerlys]

Is this really a topic????

I am forever amazed at the inability of people to use google

Me too, though I normally provide a link or two and add the search terms I used to find them. Just to add to my superiority complex and Sid the cussing rabbit can kiss by custom testicles. If you know what I mean.

Off to bed now, but I am eager to see, what all these posts about proper "HDD capacity reporting" will accumulate to, as the new MBA comes with Snow Leopard and somehow I have read somewhere, that that OS uses the number ten to calculate its storage, thus a drive with 69,000,000,000 bytes will be reported as 69GB HDD. Though I might be wrong. And smug in all places.





Ah, there they are.

 

[Scippy]

Is this really a topic????

I am forever amazed at the inability of people to use google

Tell me about it.

To the OP: We have already explained why the size space varies. If you don't want to believe us, fine. But next time, why don't you actually do some research before trying to make a conspiracy theory. If anything, you should be blaming the hard drive manufacturers as they are the ones who are actually making the drives.

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

It is standard industry practice. There is nothing wrong with your products.

 

[JodyK]

Look! Just saying how can my plain jane platter HDD show 499.78 as it's capacity and the other stuff which are all SSD show alot less.

To the poster that commented about the OS taking up space I realize that. I am not stupid. But the MBA showed capacity of 60.32GB and is currently showing 48.51 available! The 60.32GB is total capacity not counting OS ... 48.51 is what's left. I did the software updates and installed the flash plug in. Nothing else.

 

[Durious]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I want my 5 minutes of reading this thread back lawsuit!!

 

[potentpotable]

I am incredibly annoyed that manufacturers and retailers (like WD, whom I still buy from, admittedly) still blatantly advertise different calculated capacities.

But I've given up on caring.

 

[Chundles]

I am incredibly annoyed that manufacturers and retailers (like WD, whom I still buy from, admittedly) still blatantly advertise different calculated capacities.

But I've given up on caring.

They don't. You buy a 320GB drive, you get 320 billion bytes.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

There will always be variables on HD size on the same HD between reformats.

I have a 120gig in my desktop. Over the years I have reformat that drive 4 or 5 times and everything time it was reported back different size. Now all of them have been in a range of 3-4 gigs.
Hardware never changed. The OS was XP. The larger the hard drive the bigger the variances between reformats.
On something like the iPod a certain amount of the flash memory is going to be held in reserve for when sectors go bad that it can be replaced by something else.

 

[Lifequest]

The Thread should be:
Is anyone annoyed by me being annoyed by SSD being smaller than advertised?

 

[bcaslis]

OK gotta rant for a second. I have looked at the capacity of every iPod, iPod touch, iPhone and iPad that I have owned and none of them had the advertised size space capacities.

Example my wives 16GB 3GS says 14.3GB, my 16GB iPhone 4 has 14GB even (12 1/2 % short!!!!!!) and my 64GB iPad 3G has 59.2GB.

NOW I broke down and bought a 11 inch MBA 1.4 with 64GB storage and what do you know IT'S SHORT!! 60.32GB

...

So, let me get this right. You get a 64GB flash iPad then a 64GB flash MBA and the MBA shows a tiny bit more storage than the iPad and you are both surprised and mad?



Seriously. A life. Get one.

 

[potentpotable]

They don't. You buy a 320GB drive, you get 320 billion bytes.

But for an HD to show up at 320GB on your computer, it must have a capacity of over 320 billion bytes, no?

 

[Cerano]

its a fact that drives always smaller than advertised. seriously. the OS takes up space

 

[weckart]

FLAME on people. Tell me how it's not a big deal. Tell me how stupid I am for bringing it up. Tell me they are all over provisioned.

Too many people replying above misunderstanding the issue. Yes, all SSDs have some element of over provisioning otherwise they would quickly slow down, with or without TRIM.

As a rule of thumb, if an SSD drive is advertised as 64GB, then expect 60GB. Others, like OCZ are a bit more honest and state the capacity as 60GB although clearly more has been placed on the drive for provisioning.

Whether the capacity overstatement is down to Apple or the flash memory manufacturer is anyone's guess.