Get the most storage space out of a Western Digital harddrive.

TheHeartSmasherTheHeartSmasher
edited September 2005 in Hardware
I have just purchased a Western digial Harddrive (External).
320GB

I was wondering if anyone knows how to get the most space out of the drive. So I don't loose 20GB when I format it when it comes in.

Comments

  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited September 2005
    You don't lose 20GB, it was never there in the first place. HD manufacturers go by 1000k to a meg, 1000 meg to a gig, etc so you're actually buying less in the first place, it's just shown to you more obviously when it's formatted and gives you the correct 1024 meg > gig ratio then you lose a small amount for filesystem overhead.
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited September 2005
    To elaborate on Enverex' post, Windows reports gigabytes as 2^30 bytes or 1,073,741,824 bytes- sometimes known as a gibibyte. Hard drive manufacturers report GB as 10^10 or 1,000,000,000 bytes. Windows will report your drive as being around 298GB.
  • TheHeartSmasherTheHeartSmasher
    edited September 2005
    That sucks why don't they make a standard the shows you how much space your really getting instead.
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