OK, the computer geek in me is coming out again. Fellow Blogger, Jake, posted
on his blog Utterlyboring.com.
This site explains the math/science behind it. However, its sounds far more complicated than it really is.
So to help explain it to the average Joe (or in this case average Shelly)
When you go to the lumber yard and ask for a 2 x 4 piece of wood you are actually getting a 1 1/2 x 3 1/2 piece of wood. The original piece of wood is 2 x 4 but when it is cut down to a smooth, flat finish, it becomes the 1 1/2 x 3 1/2 perfect piece. (OK sometimes not perfect .... but you get the point).
The same is with computers. You start with 500 GB (gigabytes) and then you take away from the size when you add all the software that goes into it. You are not getting less of a product. The sell point references the original size not the "finished size".
3 comments:
It's not actually the software, but the formatting of the platters inside the hard drive.
Good words.
A great analogy: too bad it's WRONG. Drives that are sold as 500GB contain 500 billion DECIMAL bytes. But computers don't use decimal numbers, they use BINARY numbers. This is where the discrepancy comes from. It has NOTHING to do with the amount of drive space used by the file table, operating system, etc. as your description implies, so your statement is VERY MISLEADING. The math behind it can be found here:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/09/gigabyte-decimal-vs-binary.html
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