OZOPremium
join:2003-01-17
kudos:2 | Windows OS is using wrong measurements Do you know that Windows OS is using wrong measurements misleading user every time he/she sees the size of a file, a folder or a disk.
In tooltips (small info balloon with short info about file) they print KB, MB, GB, but in reality it's KiB, MiB and GiB respectively (which are obviously different). In order to find out the real size of the file/folder you have to go to properties sheet and look at value in round brackets (not in the provided size in KB, MB, ...).
It's really strange to me why m$ creates this mess with size measurements in Windows OS. What is the point to mislead users?
The mess with measurements creates problems for people trying to use it. Need an example - read this thread - Bought a 160 gig hard drive, only sees 149 of it?. Motherboard shows real HD size - 160 GB, while Windows OS shows only 149 GB. Answer - it's because m$ misleads you here. It's not 149 GB, it's 149GiB which is equal to 160 GB.
BTW, m$ time to time uses GB term in the right way (accordingly to standards). Look at this article - How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP. There they clearly say "current 137 gigabyte (GB) limit". If they would be consistent - we'll see "current 128 gigabyte (GB) limit" instead. But they're not. As a result along with question - what the size is - now everybody has to ask - how do you measure it. Otherwise there is big chance they will talk about different things...
To your reference - check this post with International Standards. There you'll find clear definition and difference between KB and KiB, ...
Who needs to measure size of files/folders/disks in KiB, MiB, GiB,... ? I personally need it in standard KB, MB, GB,...
While I do not have any expectation on fixing that mess by m$ - I will try and ask them to be consistent and use common decimal system of standard measurements human used to use - kilo, mega, giga..., and not binary multipliers.
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Keep it simple, it'll become complex by itself... |
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 BlitzenZeusBurnt Out CynicPremium
join:2000-01-13
kudos:2
 ·Frontier FiOS
| Look at every other operating system, every operating system uses these terms, and the same method of storage for the most part.
BTW, drive makers are the ones cheating people, they know they are going to be used for data, and when used for data they have roughly 7% less space than advertised. They used to sell drives measured in data storage capacity, they don't anymore, and use a measurement which is not used for data storage so it makes the drives appear larger, cheating the customer, fully knowing they are going to store data.
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My hourly rates:
$25 per hour.
$35 per hour if you want to watch.
$45 per hour if you want to help.
$75 per hour if you tried to fix it, and failed.
The biggest error is sitting in front of your keyboard. |
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 Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA | reply to OZO
Microsoft has been in the computer biz for a while. They are not using "wrong measurements". See the example above.
Windows reports the file size as 15.9 MB. The actual number of bytes is 16,706,160. Divide that by 1 MB (1,048,576) and you get 15.9322357177734375, which rounds to 15.9 MB. Windows is exactly right!
For more info, see:
»Re: bits and bytes |
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OZOPremium
join:2003-01-17
kudos:2 | Accordingly to International Standards in the example above we have size 16.7MB which is equal to 15.9MiB.
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Keep it simple, it'll become complex by itself... |
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Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA | As of 2004 this naming convention has not yet gained widespread use.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_pre···prefixes
Nor will it. |
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OZOPremium
join:2003-01-17
kudos:2 | said by Wily_One:
As of 2004 this naming convention has not yet gained widespread use.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_pre···prefixes
Nor will it.
Thank you for bolding this statement, but it means nothing. It's just an opinion.
We both have to agree on termins to use and be consistent in order to understand each other. The best way to do so - use standards (like metric system), based on decimals (10), not on multipliers like 12, 16, 8 or 2.
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Keep it simple, it'll become complex by itself... |
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 Hayward K A R - 1 2 0 CPremium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
kudos:1
4 edits | reply to BlitzenZeus
said by BlitzenZeus:
BTW, drive makers are the ones cheating people, they know they are going to be used for data, and when used for data they have roughly 7% less space than advertised.
Totally NOT true!!!!
The same argument is said about internet service... just happens that 5-7% of the data sent is NECESSARY to make it work, check bits, etc... just as a with a HD, a file system is necessary overhead.
A file system's actual size depends on specific OS used, so drives are sold as RAW space (actual bytes on the disk)... internet connections are sold as RAW (actually sent even if ultimately discarded) data bits.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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BlitzenZeusBurnt Out CynicPremium
join:2000-01-13
kudos:2
1 edit | tcp/ip, and data storage is different. While tcp/ip has headers which are not part of the data which take up to over 10% at times, that is entirely different than comparing 1024B = 1KB to 1000b = 1Kb. |
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Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA | reply to Hayward
said by Hayward:
said by BlitzenZeus:
BTW, drive makers are the ones cheating people, they know they are going to be used for data, and when used for data they have roughly 7% less space than advertised.
Totally NOT true!!!!
The same argument is said about internet service... just happens that 5-7% of the data sent is NECESSARY to make it work, check bits, etc... just as a with a HD, a file system is necessary overhead.
A file system's actual size depends on OS, so drives are sold as RAW space... internet connections are sold as RAW (actually sent even if discarded) data.
Sorry, but that's not correct. The file system overhead is not the 5-7% he's talking about. He's talking about the difference between a 120GB drive in marketing speak (120,000,000,000) versus 120GB in actual binary (128,849,018,880). This is raw (unformatted) capacity.
You are correct, however, that laying down a file system will eat up a percentage of space for the formatting and partitioning information. This is why no one gets 120GB of usable space from a 120GB drive. |
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Hayward K A R - 1 2 0 CPremium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
kudos:1
1 edit | quote:
You are correct, however, that laying down a file system will eat up a percentage of space for the formatting and partitioning information. This is why no one gets 120GB of usable space from a 120GB drive.
EVEN if they did correct that mathematical difference! But in spaces that HUGE and as CHEAP as they are does it REALLY matter???
My first HD (1986 or so) was a MAMMOTH 100MB and cost MUCH MORE than a 250GB drive of today.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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BlitzenZeusBurnt Out CynicPremium
join:2000-01-13
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Frontier FiOS
4 edits | reply to Wily_One
I remember having a old 32mb drive on an antiquated 8086 machine, and after the drive was formatted with fat it had a little over 32mb for total disk storage. Selling something for its intend use, and labeling its capacity for its intended use should be law.... Just like when you buy a 19" monitor with only 18" viewable bs... You can't use that other 1" so why sell it as a 19"? You don't see this viewable bs with televisions...
I can't pay you in equal Canadian dollars when the price is in American dollars, and expect you to accept it. 
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My hourly rates:
$25 per hour.
$35 per hour if you want to watch.
$45 per hour if you want to help.
$75 per hour if you tried to fix it, and failed.
The biggest error is sitting in front of your keyboard. |
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OZOPremium
join:2003-01-17
kudos:2 | reply to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:
He's talking about the difference between a 120GB drive in marketing speak (120,000,000,000) versus 120GB in actual binary (128,849,018,880).
Sorry, I do not understand here. What do you mean 120GB in actual binary (128,849,018,880)?
How do you measured it? In GB or in GiB?
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Keep it simple, it'll become complex by itself... |
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Hayward K A R - 1 2 0 CPremium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
kudos:1
2 edits | reply to BlitzenZeus
quote:
when you buy a 19" monitor with only 18" viewable bs... You can't use that other 1" so why sell it as a 19"? You don't see this viewable bs with televisions
SURE you can.... just tear off the face plate and adjust the scanning... there is a full size tube back there!!... just people like clean and neat appearance and square edges. (tubes of physical dynamic strength against the internal vacuum need to be at least slightly rounded.)
Oh and you think its bad now??? ALL original Color TV tubes were round... so considerably chopped at top and bottom and very curved sides... at least they have gotten them nearly square... viewable or not you are paying for the tube, just as internet you are paying fo ALL the bits sent used or not.
And its hardly deceptive, virtually all TV's and monitors are labeled in tube AND viewable area size.
PS that's the nice thing about LCD monitors (which can be truly square) they are true size so a 15" LCD is very close to a 17" CRT in viewable area.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA
1 edit | reply to Hayward
I just don't like the deceptive practice. Hard drives are much cheaper per megabyte (now gigabyte) than they used to be, that's true, but a 7% loss to the consumer is unethical.
When you buy a dozen eggs is it OK to get 11? Would you not put back that carton and pick one that actually had 12? Eggs are relatively cheap too.
Unless of course you are OZO, who wants 10 eggs. ;) |
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Hayward K A R - 1 2 0 CPremium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
kudos:1 | It's all in how you do the math... more akin to getting a bakers dozen (13) or 12.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West) |
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Wily_OnePremium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA | Last I checked they don't bake eggs. ;)
But now that I think about it, it has been a long while since I've gotten a baker's dozen. :( |
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OZOPremium
join:2003-01-17
kudos:2 | reply to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:
I just don't like the deceptive practice. Hard drives are much cheaper per megabyte (now gigabyte) than they used to be, that's true, but a 7% loss to the consumer is unethical.
When you buy a dozen eggs is it OK to get 11? Would you not put back that carton and pick one that actually had 12? Eggs are relatively cheap too.
Unless of course you are OZO, who wants 10 eggs. ;)
Guys, I know for sure that I have 10 fingers (one may say I have two thumbs as well and think that total would be 12  ).
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Keep it simple, it'll become complex by itself... |
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BlitzenZeusBurnt Out CynicPremium
join:2000-01-13
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Frontier FiOS
1 edit | reply to Wily_One
These are deceptive practices, period. Selling it under one measurement, but in reality its going to be used under another measurement. There needs to be exacting standards that labels items for their intended use, and in the measurements of that intended use.
To go back to my Canadian dollar analogy, if you paid for a American lottery ticket in American dollars, but they paid your winnings in equal Canadian dollars you were just screwed... Same damn thing!
--
My hourly rates:
$25 per hour.
$35 per hour if you want to watch.
$45 per hour if you want to help.
$75 per hour if you tried to fix it, and failed.
The biggest error is sitting in front of your keyboard. |
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OZOPremium
join:2003-01-17
kudos:2 | said by BlitzenZeus:
These are deceptive practices, period. Selling it under one measurement, but in reality its going to be used under another measurement. There needs to be exacting standards that labels items for their intended use, and in the measurements of that intended use.
To go back to my Canadian dollar analogy, if you paid for a American lottery ticket in American dollars, but they paid your winnings in equal Canadian dollars you were just screwed... Same damn thing!
Exactly!
I'd feel the same way if I'm taking a file (OS shows me on tooltip 839MB) and trying to put it into a disk that has this space, but I can't move it because the real size is 880,227,360 bytes, which is more then expected at the beginning (real example).
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Keep it simple, it'll become complex by itself... |
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Hayward K A R - 1 2 0 CPremium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
kudos:1
4 edits | reply to BlitzenZeus
said by BlitzenZeus:
These are deceptive practices, period. Selling it under one measurement, but in reality its going to be used under another measurement.
So I suppose you feel real ripped off too because you buy a 270 horsepower car, but that is ONLY at a fixed rpm and load... in the real world overall performance not barely near that... but thats OK the engine CAN do it when just right?
Why not JUST BE EDUCATED in what it is you are actually buying... you REALLY need 120GB of TRUE space (OS or whatever aside) then buy a 160GB DRIVE... WHAT $10-20 at most MORE MAYBE?... BIG DEAL!!
FACT of the matter is Metric mesurement is ALL 10's... that oddness of the computer world bastardizes that and adds 24 to each 1000 so be it... you know it and buy accordingly.
And this is especially absurd considering how much always waste space there is on a HD as a 1 byte file still occupies a complete cluster (usually around 1KB), no matter what.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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