On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, der Mouse wrote:

> >>> beyond 1.073GB
> >> How...bizarre.  What on earth produces that limit?
> > Same thing.  6-byte SCSI command blocks.
> 
> > The definition of "GB" is somewhat variable from place to place.
> 
> As far as I can tell, everyone uses powers of two, except disk
> manufacturers who like to make their products sound bigger than they
> are.
> 
> I've often wondered why they haven't been hauled up for fraud; ads have
> even taken to including notes like "based on 1GB = 1 billion bytes",
> which has always said to me "we know we're being misleading, we're
> doing it deliberately, and we intend to keep on doing it".  Which sure
> sounds like fraud to me.  (Heck, why not base it on 1GB = 950 million
> bytes instead, and get even bigger-sounding numbers?)

...because they're using the *real world* definition of Kilo, Mega, Giga,
etc, which is 1000, 1000000, 1000000000 - you know, like the kilogram -
1000 grams, or a megaton - 1000000 tons.

The disk manufacturers are perfectly right - it's just the rest of the
computing industry that's different :&)

I still don't understand why the disk manufacturers don't quote in "real
numbers" tho. Plus - they quote the unformatted capacity usually too -
which means you always get less anyway. But then again, that depends on
the fs you put on the disk.

-- Matt

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