G5 Hard Drive Question (noobish) at DVinfo.net
DV Info Net

Go Back   DV Info Net > Apple / Mac Post Production Solutions > Final Cut Suite
Register FAQ Today's Posts Buyer's Guides

Final Cut Suite
Discussing the editing of all formats with FCS, FCP, FCE

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old February 24th, 2005, 04:54 PM   #1
Regular Crew
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Hollywood
Posts: 28
G5 Hard Drive Question (noobish)

I recently bought a Maxtor 300gb SATA HD. After installing and partioning (just 1) the drive, it only shows up as having 279 gigs free.

is this some kind of bug or is this normal? I am running the latest OSX.

just checking, any help appreciated

thx =]
Evan Estay is offline   Reply With Quote
Old February 24th, 2005, 05:12 PM   #2
Major Player
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Plano, TX
Posts: 607
It's normal.
Hard drive manufacturers rate capacity using the formula 1000MB=1GB when in reality if you actually format the drive it is 1024MB=1GB. You will lose a little less than 10% capacity when you format the drive because of this and the drives directory structure. If you left it unformatted it would be 300Gig, but it wouldn't do you any good that way.
Rhett Allen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old February 24th, 2005, 05:17 PM   #3
Wrangler
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Mays Landing, NJ
Posts: 11,802
Actually this is just the age-old confusion about the definition of a kilobyte/megabyte/gigabyte. In reality, a kilobyte is 1024 bytes (not 1,000) and a megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes (not 1,000,000) and a gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes.

Divide 300 by 1.074 and you get 279.33, which is what the Finder is telling you. This has been a source of confusion for everybody since the days of multi-megabyte disks! Disk Utility will tell you the full story. For example, if I look at a 100GB drive on my own system it reports: 93.16 GB (100,030,242,816 Bytes).

Naturally, drive manufacturers use the math which makes their drives appear larger (eg: number of bytes and not the true definition of a Gigabyte).
Boyd Ostroff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old February 24th, 2005, 05:19 PM   #4
Wrangler
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Mays Landing, NJ
Posts: 11,802
Rhett: looks like we posted at the same time... Look at my math, that's all that's happening. I think the space used for directories on a 300 GB drive is trivial, certainly not 21 GB!
Boyd Ostroff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old February 24th, 2005, 08:42 PM   #5
Major Player
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Plano, TX
Posts: 607
Nice math there Boyd! I knew there was a divisor in there somewhere. I just always rounded it to 10% because I'm math-lazy (at least about some things).
I don't know why they don't just make the drives OVER-sized so it comes out to 300Gig (or whatever they're claiming) after it's formatted, otherwise it's kind of misleading advertising.
Rhett Allen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old February 25th, 2005, 07:47 AM   #6
Wrangler
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: DFW area, TX
Posts: 6,117
Images: 1
I am looking at the same drive and am glad that it works ok. It has a 16mb cache as well. Evan, can you give some info about how well it is working in your system?

Thanks,

-gb-
Greg Boston is offline   Reply
Reply

DV Info Net refers all where-to-buy and where-to-rent questions exclusively to these trusted full line dealers and rental houses...

B&H Photo Video
(866) 521-7381
New York, NY USA

Scan Computers Int. Ltd.
+44 0871-472-4747
Bolton, Lancashire UK


DV Info Net also encourages you to support local businesses and buy from an authorized dealer in your neighborhood.
  You are here: DV Info Net > Apple / Mac Post Production Solutions > Final Cut Suite


 



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:24 AM.


DV Info Net -- Real Names, Real People, Real Info!
1998-2024 The Digital Video Information Network