Why Hard disks/Pen drives Have Less Space Then Their Actual Storage Space?

Why Hard disks/Pen drives Have Less Space Then Their Actual Storage Space?
Well..this is the most common question of all computer users!

Take the example of a hard disk of 250 GB space, its actually has 233 GB space.

Even, take a 4 GB pen-drive, it'll obviously have its storage space printed as 4 GB. But when you connect it to a computer and check its space, its space will be 3.72 gb. Why is this so?

Here is the reason, I'll be explaining by taking the example of 250 gb hard disk..

The fact is that,

All hard disk manufacturer way of counting space is different from the way a software count a
space.

This means to a hard disk manufacturer, 1gb is 1000 mb, 1 mb is 1000 kb and so on.

Software or computer language recognize a space in terms of power of 2 say 21, 22,23 etc.

Hence a kb is 210 bytes which is 1024 bytes.

Lets do a little math:

From a manufacturer:

A 250 gb hard disk is 250 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 =250000000000 bytes.
From the computer language point of view:

250000000000 bytes is: 250000000000/­(1024*1024*1024) =232.83 gb.

Now you see why your 250gb hard disk has only less than 232.83 gb space in total.

If you go with higher space like 500 gb & so on, the space missing goes on increasing. 

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About The Author:

Mr Aditya Khante,

From Hinganghat of Wardha District In Maharashtra. Internet surfing, playing games are his interests! 

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