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18-09-2011, 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=gigabyte+fo...+misconception

A 32GB drive is not about 28GB, it's 32GB. You don't lose any space from formatting. My 32GB card is 32.2961 GB, after formatting it's 32.2959 GB. Formatting has nothing to do with the capacity "loss".

Suppose you think LMGTFY is really clever don't you? I didn't need to know the answer, BTW 'cus I knew what the answer was. And your answer is not correct.

As not to re-invent the wheel, I've ripped this from this site / answer.

Manufacturers sell the drive based on 1GB=1000MB, 1MB=1000kb 1KB=1000bytes, etc.

Hard drives are formatted like this: 1GB=1024MB, 1MB=1024kb, 1KB=1024bytes, etc.

So you're not really losing anything, it's just deceptive marketing. So *I think* 1GB actually equals 1073.741824MB, but I probably did the math wrong (1024(b)x1024(k)x1024(m)). So for every GB you lose ~74MB. Works out for me, I've got 2 120GB drives, using 74MB/GB "loss" I should have 8880MB less when formatted, Windows shows it as (roughly) 111GB.