Features of the term "disk size"

When you become familiar with articles on computer topics, it is sometimes quite difficult to say definitely which components are key and which are subsidiary. For example, until quite recently the video card was considered necessary, but now there is enough CPU with an integrated graphics core. Although, of course, everything is relative. Currently, no full-fledged computing system can do without a storage device - a drive. It is on it are all the programs: both user and system.

Physical realization

There are several main types of drives: hard drives, CDs and flash drives. Now the most common devices of the first type, using the magnetic principle of recording. The second is based on optical methods of data storage, but the third, in fact, are the successors of RAM. Although the differences between them are significant, there is one parameter that is necessarily paid attention when buying and following up. This is the size of the disk. If you do not fully understand this question, then a number of unpleasant moments may arise in the future. So, what is the disk size?

How to measure a hard drive

At first glance, an unprepared person might think that it's quite easy to determine the size of a hard disk: you need to take a tape measure and measure the device's case. Alas, in most cases this will be a mistake, since it's not about dimensions (although sometimes they are needed). The "disk size" value indicates how much digital data can be stored on this device. As a rule, the more, the better. The unit for measuring the amount of information is a bit (binary digit) and its derivatives - byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabytes, etc. For example, the size of the DVD-disc (purple ebb of the mirror surface) is 4.7 GB (gigabytes). There are also two-layer modifications, in which the amount of data that can be saved reaches 8.5 GB. It should be noted that sometimes the term "volume" is used instead of the term "disk size". They are completely equal.

Features

Workers of computer stores and service center masters often have to face a funny situation when a person who recently bought a hard drive or a USB flash drive appeals with a statement of fraud. He puts forward the requirement to replace the drive, since its volume is smaller than that indicated on the information sticker, or less reported by diagnostic utilities. So, a hard drive with a declared capacity of 500 GB is defined as a 465 GB model. The shortage is quite substantial. The same thing happens with flash drives, though, the figures are already smaller. But there is no deception - manufacturers simply mix dimensions.

The fact is that in the binary system of calculus the familiar "10" turns into "2". Therefore, to get a thousand, you need to multiply 2 by itself 10 times, which in the end gives 1024. Accordingly, a gigabyte is 1024 megabytes or 1,074 * 10 to the power of 9 (billion). Manufacturers simply omit the coefficient, representing a billion bytes of gigabytes, which leads to a loss of about 7% of the correct volume. Therefore, the disk size indicated on the label is always greater than the real one. 500 GB are converted to 465, 4 GB to 3.72 GB, and so on.