> Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 20:29:22 -0500 (CDT) > CC: debian-user@lists.debian.org > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > From: Dave Sherohman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Daniel Barclay said: > > > From: Kenneth Scharf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > .... Fdisk reported my 17.2 maxtor (which the bios > > > sizes as about 16.8gb, so maxtor lies a little). > > > > Why are so many computer users so ignorant of international > > standards? > > What do international standards have to do with it?
That's where the definition that the giga- and G prefixes mean 10^9 comes from. > I doubt that this is > due to one source using G = 10^9 and the other using G = 2^30; But it is. Haven't you heard the every-so-often arguments about this (that drive manufacturers "lie" by people who forget that computer users are approximating when we use G to mean 2^30 instead of 10^9)? > any disk > loses some of its (theoretical) capacity when formatted because the > format itself is data and uses some of that capacity. 'Losing' 0.4G out > of a 17G drive sounds about right. The difference is not that. (The drive manufacturers aren't stating an unformatted capacity (as diskettes sometimes still mention); they're telling you how much capacity there is for you to use.) Daniel
