2048 GB Hard Disk

[Gene E. Bloch]

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

A yes-no response means the OP doesn't learn how to decipher on his own.
Knowledge weans the child from ignorance and dependence.

However, in this instance the yes answer isn't in fact correct

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Gene E. Bloch

However, in the world of computers there are defined terms for powers of
2 that approximate certain powers of 10. They are denoted by adding i to
the abbreviation, so that 2^10 is a KiB instead of a KB, and so on.

As long as the disk maker calls 10^3 a KB and not a KiB, he is not lying
(in science, k should be lower case, but in computers, upper case seems
to be the norm).

A variant that precedes the insertion of the i - and the term kibibyte
and its bigger brothers - was that 1k was/is 1000, whereas 1K was/is
1024.

However, in practice, I am not aware of anyone in the computer context
who actually uses other than the powers of 1024, _except_ disc drive
manufacturers, which makes me consider disc drive manufacturers to be
guilty of misleading. (Actually I have - though not often - come across
memory card and USB sticks similarly misleadingly described.)

Note: I have paid too little attention to the variant, so I may be in
error to some degree in the nomenclature, but the notion remains
correct.

There are several other posts in this thread that clarify the issue.

In practice, I've never heard anyone use the i prefixes (Ki, Gi, Ti),
nor their full versions (kibibyte etc.), except in variations of this
particular discussion! [And my spelling checker doesn't recognise it
either.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

`Where a calculator on the Eniac is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps
weigh 1.5 tons.' Popular Mechanics, March 1949 (quoted in Computing 1999-12-16)

 

[Ken Blake]

On Sat, 09 Jun 2012 07:41:03 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:


As long as the disk maker calls 10^3 a KB and not a KiB, he is not lying

As I said ("correct though they are") in what you quoted above, you
are right in that he is not lying. But as far as I'm concerned, it
*is* deceptive marketing. It's like a cracker manufacturer putting the
same amount of crackers in a bigger box. It's not lying, but it *is*
deceptive marketing.

And all of the abbreviation with the i in them (KiB, etc.) are hardly
ever used in the world of computers. For all practical purposes, in
the world of computers, the only abbreviation is KB, and despite the
official international standard, it means 1024, not 1000.

Outside the world of computers, it may be a different story, but I
don't know enough about that to comment on it.


As an aside, I just canceled the sending of this message to point out
that my spell checker (in Forte Agent) flagged KiB as a spelling
error, but accepts KB.

 

[Char Jackson]

However, in this instance the yes answer isn't in fact correct

Hmm, I would say the yes answer is indeed correct and I have to marvel
at some of the drawn out responses this simple yes/no question has
generated. The funny things is that most (all?) of the longest replies
failed to give a yes/no answer at all. A forest versus trees thing, I
suppose.

 

[Paul]

Hmm, I would say the yes answer is indeed correct and I have to marvel
at some of the drawn out responses this simple yes/no question has
generated. The funny things is that most (all?) of the longest replies
failed to give a yes/no answer at all. A forest versus trees thing, I
suppose.

I think the answer is actually "NO", because there is no such
thing as a 2048GB hard drive.

Which is why, all I could provide in my answer, was information
on how to do units conversion, and what typical units are
used to measure various items in a computer.

There is very little consistency in the usage of capacity measures,
and I can provide examples of stupid statements, if you want more
of them.

So the answer to the question is "NO", but only because
there's no such thing as a 2048GB hard drive. Drives at
that capacity point, will be slightly larger than 2000GB,
such that the FTC doesn't come after the manufacturer.
But not accidentally big enough, to qualify for a 2048GB
description.

Now, as a test of your understanding of the units of measure
discussed, examine this statement and give me your analysis.

http://review.techworld.com/storage/3281173/seagate-barracuda-xt-3tb-review/?intcmp=ros-md-acc-rv

"Software bundle

Windows cannot recognise more than 2048GB of a drive in the
legacy MBR mode (known as the 2.2TB ceiling problem)."

Paul

 

[Ed Cryer]

You can get size info from "dd".

http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.5.zip

( syntax at http://www.chrysocome.net/dd )

Elevate a command prompt window (cmd.exe) then run

dd --list

and it will report the entire size of the disk (as
visible to the OS, so can't "peer past" an HPA). It
also gives sizes for each of the partitions. Partition0
is the entire disk, while Partition1-Partition4 could
be the primary partitions.

That should help clear up the notional size.

My 500GB disk reports

"NT Block Device Objects

\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0

size is 500,107,862,016

That is the amount of space that "dd" can access, which
is why the tool outputs that data. You should not be
able to access past that point (although the dd code
fails to work right for USB flash sticks - that may have
been fixed in a later version).

If I use PTEDIT32 (which also needs to be elevated to work right),
it gives information in CHS format.

PTEDIT32 reports 60801 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors, and
that equals 60801*255*63*512 = 500,105,249,280 bytes

The remainder is a fraction of a cylinder, but still a multiple
of a 63 sector "fake track".

A person can take that 500,107,862,016 number, and convert
to GB or GiB as they see fit.

Paul

I'm trying to clear my brain of my working life as a computer programmer.
We almost had to think in binary; with a little octal and hexadecimal
for good measure; the latter for IBM mainframes, the former for ICL ones.
Something deep inside me goes like this;
1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096.
It kinda stops there, although the subsequent ones of 8192 etc. come
fairly easily.

We still haven't fully converted from imperial to metric in the UK yet.
We're half and half. I buy milk by the pint, oil by the litre; I measure
curtains by the yard and foot, garden fences by the metre.
Even our way of spelling "metre" seems kinda quaint.

Ed

 

[Ed Cryer]

I'm trying to clear my brain of my working life as a computer programmer.
We almost had to think in binary; with a little octal and hexadecimal
for good measure; the latter for IBM mainframes, the former for ICL ones.
Something deep inside me goes like this;
1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096.
It kinda stops there, although the subsequent ones of 8192 etc. come
fairly easily.

We still haven't fully converted from imperial to metric in the UK yet.
We're half and half. I buy milk by the pint, oil by the litre; I measure
curtains by the yard and foot, garden fences by the metre.
Even our way of spelling "metre" seems kinda quaint.

Ed

One thing I forgot to mention; we do it all in style! We're a
constitutional monarchy, when God alone knows just what would happen if
the Queen said "no" to just one little Parliamentary suggestion.
We have royal style, though. All that pageantry and riding in old
carriages brings in the bucks and respect. Did you see the concert
outside Buckingham Palace for the Jubilee? Man, what a concert! Who else
in the world could get a gig like that together?
It works, and it's working better and better the further we get away
from Dianagate.

Ed

 

[VanguardLH]

Hmm, I would say the yes answer is indeed correct and I have to marvel
at some of the drawn out responses this simple yes/no question has
generated. The funny things is that most (all?) of the longest replies
failed to give a yes/no answer at all. A forest versus trees thing, I
suppose.

Understand that the OP says 2 TB (decimal prefix), not 2 TiB (binary
prefix, aka tebibyte or TiB). That means due to the need to distinguish
between binary and decimal prefixing that 2 TB is 2 * 10^9 bytes, or
2,000,000,000,000 bytes. The OP asks if 2048 GB (also a decimal prefix)
equals 2 TB. Well, 2 GB (which is NOT the same as 2 gibibytes) is 2 *
10^9 bytes, or 2,000,000,000 bytes. Obviously 2048 * 1 GB does NOT
equal 2 TB.

2048 GB = 2.048 TB (not 2 TB)
and
2048 GiB = 2.048 TiB (also not 2 TiB).

So, the answer is NO.

2000 GB = 2 * (10^3 * 10^9) bytes = 2 * 10^12 bytes = 2 TB
There is no 2048 (2^11) value involved here for the left token to equal
the right token. The OP mixed binary and decimal powered values which
is why the answer is No. The OP did *not* ask if 2000 GB was the same
as 2 TB. He asked if 2048 GB was the same as 2 TB - and that is NOT
true.

2048 GiB = 2^10 * 2^30 bytes = 2^40 bytes = 2 TiB

Due to masking out factory-detected bad spots along with allocating
reserve space used for later remapping when new bad sectors are
discovered, the capacity of the hard disk will exceed its marketed
decimal value. This is to ensure the makers are producing a product
that meets their advertised capacity (by slightly exceeding it).
However, that overage in capacity is NOT some factor or 2 or 10. If
they didn't have this variable-sized overage, they would have to trash
lots of HDDs that had too many bad spots since they would be undersized.

So, the simply response to what the OP actually asked is "No". 2048 GB
is NOT the same as 2 TB; however, 2000 GB is the same as 2 TB. Because
the OP (and you) mixed 2-based and 10-based prefixes is why some of us
took the time to explain how prefixing works and that there are 2
variants: 2-based and 10-based.

 

[Char Jackson]

One thing I forgot to mention; we do it all in style! We're a
constitutional monarchy, when God alone knows just what would happen if
the Queen said "no" to just one little Parliamentary suggestion.
We have royal style, though. All that pageantry and riding in old
carriages brings in the bucks and respect. Did you see the concert
outside Buckingham Palace for the Jubilee? Man, what a concert! Who else
in the world could get a gig like that together?
It works, and it's working better and better the further we get away
from Dianagate.

I'm probably in the minority, but I'm embarrassed for you guys. A
"royal family" may have been unavoidable a thousand years ago, but I
don't know why you put up with it now. Willingly, even.

 

[Char Jackson]

I think the answer is actually "NO", because there is no such
thing as a 2048GB hard drive.

That's silly, (and pedantic).

If one of my customers came to me with a question like that and I
launched into a lengthy dissertation on capacity measurements, I'd
find that I have one less customer.

 

[John Williamson]

I'm probably in the minority, but I'm embarrassed for you guys. A
"royal family" may have been unavoidable a thousand years ago, but I
don't know why you put up with it now. Willingly, even.

Partly because a lot of foreign people from places with or without a
Royal Family are willing to pay a lot of money to see the places where
the Queen might stand and wave at them. That market used to keep my
wages coming in a few years ago, and, to a certain extent, still does.
You should see the average American's face when they actually see the
Queen's car, complete with outriders, driving along the M4 on the way to
or from Windsor, even if the Queen isn't in it.

There are also the free shows arranged on her behalf every day outside
the Palace, and occasional specials like the recent concert, not to
mention the nice feeling when the Queen or another Royal visits your
area, with the accompanying razzmatazz.

As Ed says, the system works, and if it ain't broke, there's no need to
fix it. The whole Royal Family costs less per head of population to run
than Obama, and their scandals are generally much more entertaining than
the French President's ones. They're well worth the £0.62 per year per
head of population that the Government pay to keep them in the style to
which they've become accustomed. (In my opinion, anyway.) Incidentally,
the overall figures say that the Queen, by assigning most of her estate
incomes to the Government, actually pays a *lot* more into Government
coffers than she receives in the grant.

 

[Char Jackson]

Understand that the OP says 2 TB (decimal prefix), not 2 TiB (binary
prefix, aka tebibyte or TiB). <snip>

Understand that the OP asked a simple question. Why read more into it
than what was given? What was in that question that prompted a few of
you to launch into a scientific and technical discussion of capacity
measurements? Does "2048GB" refer to a 1TB drive? No. Does it refer to
a 3TB drive? No. Does it refer to a 2TB drive. Obviously, yes, so why
not just say yes, which in fact is what some of us did.

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Partly because a lot of foreign people from places with or without a
Royal Family are willing to pay a lot of money to see the places
where the Queen might stand and wave at them. That market used to
keep my wages coming in a few years ago, and, to a certain extent,
still does. You should see the average American's face when they
actually see the Queen's car, complete with outriders, driving along
the M4 on the way to or from Windsor, even if the Queen isn't in it.

I am always amazed how my fellow Americans go gaga over titles and
royalty when our country and constitution are based on throwing the
rascals out.

There are also the free shows arranged on her behalf every day
outside the Palace, and occasional specials like the recent concert,
not to mention the nice feeling when the Queen or another Royal
visits your area, with the accompanying razzmatazz.

As Ed says, the system works, and if it ain't broke, there's no need
to fix it. The whole Royal Family costs less per head of population
to run than Obama, and their scandals are generally much more
entertaining than the French President's ones. They're well worth the
£0.62 per year per head of population that the Government pay to
keep them in the style to which they've become accustomed. (In my
opinion, anyway.) Incidentally, the overall figures say that the
Queen, by assigning most of her estate incomes to the Government,
actually pays a *lot* more into Government coffers than she receives
in the grant.

I figure you guys have Buckingham Palace and we have Hollywood. It all
works out.

 

[Andy Burns]

They're well worth the £0.62 per year per head of population that the
Government pay to keep them in the style to which they've become
accustomed.

Perhaps you'd be willing to chip in another 62p/year so I could have a
taste? I could prance around in a Nazi uniform at the occasional stag
do, or air my opinions on modern architecture and comment on the ocular
characteristics of oriental people ...

 

[Ed Cryer]

Partly because a lot of foreign people from places with or without a
Royal Family are willing to pay a lot of money to see the places where
the Queen might stand and wave at them. That market used to keep my
wages coming in a few years ago, and, to a certain extent, still does.
You should see the average American's face when they actually see the
Queen's car, complete with outriders, driving along the M4 on the way to
or from Windsor, even if the Queen isn't in it.

There are also the free shows arranged on her behalf every day outside
the Palace, and occasional specials like the recent concert, not to
mention the nice feeling when the Queen or another Royal visits your
area, with the accompanying razzmatazz.

As Ed says, the system works, and if it ain't broke, there's no need to
fix it. The whole Royal Family costs less per head of population to run
than Obama, and their scandals are generally much more entertaining than
the French President's ones. They're well worth the £0.62 per year per
head of population that the Government pay to keep them in the style to
which they've become accustomed. (In my opinion, anyway.) Incidentally,
the overall figures say that the Queen, by assigning most of her estate
incomes to the Government, actually pays a *lot* more into Government
coffers than she receives in the grant.

Nobody bows to our royals much as the Yankees do. They love it all.
They'd give their lives to have our pageantry and razzmatazz. The world
at large spends a small fortune paying homage to it and reading all they
can get their hands on of the royal soap opera.

Have you ever seen on TV when their president attends a dinner? There's
always some licky-lackey voice that introduces him; "laydees end
gennelmen" (bow, curtsey and doff cap) "the preseedent of thee Yunited
Staytes of America" (prostrate self on ground, do full obeisance, exit
room backwards with deep bows and curtsies).

PS. We did once try doing without royals. Some bird-brained idiot cut
the king's head off, but when his heir recovered the throne he dug up
the mortal remains of the aforesaid bird-brained idiot and hanged them.
Bravo!

Ed

 

[Ed Cryer]

Understand that the OP asked a simple question. Why read more into it
than what was given? What was in that question that prompted a few of
you to launch into a scientific and technical discussion of capacity
measurements? Does "2048GB" refer to a 1TB drive? No. Does it refer to
a 3TB drive? No. Does it refer to a 2TB drive. Obviously, yes, so why
not just say yes, which in fact is what some of us did.

You've never studied philosophy, have you Char?
It's 95% about the meaning of the verb "to be".
When you write a sentence of the format a is b, post it in a NG and ask
for opinions, then you're gonna get them by the ton; with extracts and
formulas from Zein Und Zeit, L'Etre et Le Neant, Kritik Der Reinen Vernunft.

Ed

 

[Iceman]

Ed Cryer wrote June 10th 2012 in

PS. We did once try doing without royals. Some bird-brained idiot cut
the king's head off, but when his heir recovered the throne he dug up
the mortal remains of the aforesaid bird-brained idiot and hanged them.
Bravo!

Both heads still exist (i.e. that of King Charles I and that of Oliver
Cromwell).

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Ed Cryer wrote June 10th 2012 in

Both heads still exist (i.e. that of King Charles I and that of Oliver
Cromwell).

 

[Paul]

That's silly, (and pedantic).

If one of my customers came to me with a question like that and I
launched into a lengthy dissertation on capacity measurements, I'd
find that I have one less customer.

And I would say, "show me the advert where you saw this".
And then I'd explain how the advert was wrong.

This is an example of an advert, where a customer could need
help decoding what it says. In fact, this product has a
single 500GB hard drive.

http://www.pacificgeek.com/product.asp?ID=94671&P=RS

"Intel Pentium e2140 1.8GHz 2048GB 500GB DVD+RW HD audio"

*******

I'm still waiting for you opinion on this. The reason I ask,
is more than one person has made this statement.

"Software bundle

Windows cannot recognise more than 2048GB of a drive in the
legacy MBR mode (known as the 2.2TB ceiling problem)."

And why is this important ? It's important, because too many
people shrug off what they see in Disk Management with
a "well, it's overhead", when in fact part of a noted
difference in capacity is overhead, and part is due to the
wrong units being used in a utility display.

Paul

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Hmm, I would say the yes answer is indeed correct and I have to marvel
at some of the drawn out responses this simple yes/no question has
generated. The funny things is that most (all?) of the longest replies
failed to give a yes/no answer at all. A forest versus trees thing, I
suppose.

Trouble is, the apparent simplicity of the question (-:!

The OP used "GB" and "TB" without explaining whether he meant the binary
version most of us in computing do (as I've already said, does anyone
actually ever use "GiB", "TiB" and the rest except when this discussion
comes up), or the decimal one that disc drive manufacturers do.

A _fairly_ simple answer to the question might be something like:

If you're a disc drive manufacturer, then no - 2TB is 2000 GB. For
almost everyone else, then yes, more or less.