SSD space on MBP doesn't match product specs

[sparkles3020]

Today I received the 14 inch mbp M3 pro chip, 18 gb memory. The SSD in the product description says 512 gb. Email receipt from Best Buy also says 512 gb. My computer says 494.38 GB total SSD space. Does anyone have this computer and is your SSD 512 gb? Thanks.

 

[chabig]

The specs are accurate. The discrepancy is due to the way the space is reported. Here is my 1GB SSD.

 

[Isamilis]

The specs are accurate. The discrepancy is due to the way the space is reported. Here is my 1GB SSD.


View attachment 2408560

You’re lucky. It’s 994 times bigger! Lol

 

[sparkles3020]

The specs are accurate. The discrepancy is due to the way the space is reported. Here is my 1GB SSD.


View attachment 2408560

Thanks for showing this!

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Difference between Gigabyte and Gibibyte (GB vs GiB)

Understanding the difference between GB and GiB

www.dataunitconverter.com

Also some space is used for formatting (though that is much less difference than above).

 

[theluggage]

Today I received the 14 inch mbp M3 pro chip, 18 gb memory. The SSD in the product description says 512 gb. Email receipt from Best Buy also says 512 gb. My computer says 494.38 GB total SSD space. Does anyone have this computer and is your SSD 512 gb? Thanks.

Real answer: MacOS uses some space for a recovery partition (so you can boot in recovery mode re-install the OS) and an APFS data store - neither of which show up in the Finder.

You can get a fuller picture from the Terminal:

% diskutil list /dev/disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         1.0 TB     disk0
   1:             Apple_APFS_ISC ⁨⁩                        524.3 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk3⁩         994.7 GB   disk0s2
   3:        Apple_APFS_Recovery ⁨⁩                        5.4 GB     disk0s3

...everything you see in Finder is "Container disk 3" - most of the missing space is accounted for by the 5.4GB "Recovery" partition.

@Mitthrawnuruodo 's comment about GiB vs. GB is technically correct (and a real can of worms - manufacturers often mix up GiB and GB), but not the issue here - Macs report storage space correctly in GB, not GiB (RAM is another matter...).