Missing 9 GB of HD Space on new drive

T

t_habrock

Registered
I installed a new, un-used :
120GB Barracuda ATA V Internal EIDE Hard Drive (7200 RPM, Ultra ATA/100 interface, 2MB cache buffer, 350 Gs nonoperating shock ), in my:

1.25 Ghz MDD Dual Processor
512MB RAM
Dual Boot (MAC OSX/Mac OS 9)

After installing and erasing/fromatting the Hard Drive using Disk Utilities in MAC OSX, I find I only have 111 GB of available Hard Drive space. No programs or system software is installed on this drive, in fact the drive is completely blank minus the format info and the MAC OS9 Drivers. Can they really account for the missing 9 GB...?

Thanks for any help.

Peace,
Tim
 
Since this is my second 120 GB hard drive, I am using it to capture digital video and record Pro-Tools. It will hold no system files.

What is recommended to maximize the available space?

Tanks,
Tim
 
does you other 120gb hd have exactly 120 gb? it is normal for hd's to be over-advertised: the way gigabytes are counted in the packaging (with a 1000) is slightly different then how the computer reads them (with a 1024). so in the end you lose a little bit of space, but the bigger the hard drive, the bigger the disparity between the size exclaimed on the packaging and the size as read by the computer.
my 40gb drive reads as 38.15gb, 15gb ipods aren't really 15gb.
this has to do with base 10 numbers and base 8 numbers, right? can anyone explain it in /programmer/ terms mabye? i always wondered why its like this too, why not just advertise it like it actually is? make it a law so people don't lie to me...
 
that's a normal format size for 120GB HD, there's nothing missing, it's just a difference in the way the disk space is computed by different companies. 1 GB =2^30=1,073,741,824 Bytes, so 120 GB divided by 2^30(1 GB) =111.7587089538574 GB total space on the Drive, are you confused yet? The manufacturer creates the drive using 1 GB = 10^9 = 1,000,000,000 Bytes, so 120 GB divided by 10^9 (1GB) is now 120,000,000,000 Bytes, So the HD is sold as 120GB, but space used by the computer is 111.7587 GB more or less. Of course, now you can see that both figures are exactly the same, just computed from different references. And you thought math was absolute! (And yes, formatting and drivers installed takes some of that space, so a blank HD will not show that 111.7587, etc. and will be a little less. there's actually a couple of other ways to compute HD space, I'll leave THAT to someone with more time on their hands. ;)
 
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