Capacity Disclaimer

Why Do I Have Less Drive Space?

Your hard drive shows less space than the published specifications due to a number of reasons.

1. The way size is calculated and displayed.
2. Any "Partitions" on the disk will change the total in a specific partition.
3. Hidden files and folders decrease available space.
4. Compression increases the apparent size, but not the physical size.
5. Drives larger than the OS or Drivers natively supports.

1. A unit of storage, 1 GB can mean either 1,000,000,000 (billion) bytes using the decimal system or 1,073,741,824 bytes using the binary system. Most hard drive manufacturers define 1GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes, while a computer’s operating system will treat 1GB as 1,073,741,824 bytes. This is why the operating system shows the hard drive’s capacity as different to the manufacturer’s claim.

 

In the screen shot at right: The first number is the total number of bytes, the second number is based on the number of decimal megabytes or gigabytes.

 

 

2. Some computers have a non-DOS hard drive partition that is used for features such as Save to Disk, Hibernation, or Recovery. This partition is not normally reported by the operating system, although it can be viewed using a disk partition utility.  This is very common on desktops and laptops. 

3. By default, all system files are hidden and cannot be seen. This may adversely affect the reporting of available hard drive space. You can set your Folder Options so you view system and hidden files and folders, but do be careful as changes to system files can adversely affect your system.

4. If you turn on Compression for a drive, it will increase reported free space and used space, but since compression is based upon the actual contents, this number is not fixed, but will change as files are added or changed.

5. Older operating systems did not support today's larger drives, so the total space reported may be much smaller than the drive specifications.

It is also worth noting that bad sectors are corrected by your operating system and can change the total drive space, free space, or used space as well.

So as long as a drive is reporting a value approximately close to the specification value, you can be comfortable that you received the right drive and that you are getting the correct data storage.