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I am sorry I am asking this old beaten up question and this question is not code related. I understand why 500GB advertised hard disk in actuality is only 465 GB because of the 1024 bit system. For a moment lets not take into account partitions, ghost / hidden files etc.

The question I have is why don't hard drive markers make a bigger hard disk and then sell it as 500GB

for Example: a 538GB really will be 538 * 0.93 = 500.34 GB and then they can say we are giving you 500GB hard drive.

I have googled this topic, read many opinions but no one ever seems to explain why can't hard drive makers themselves make a bigger disk and then sell it as advertised instead of playing this 1024 bit game with consumers?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/175176/advertised-disk-space-vs-actual-disk-space

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Sam B
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  • We can't really say "why" anyone does anything, so I'm voting to close this as Primarily Opinion Based. Also, this isn't a discussion forum, so if you have an actual problem perhaps edit your question to be about it instead. – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Nov 24 '13 at 21:13
  • I am sorry but do let me know where can I ask such a question? I posted it on stackoverflow and everyone there told me that it belongs in superuser. That's why I asked it here. – Sam B Nov 24 '13 at 21:14
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    [Why do hard drives display a size lower than the true value?](http://superuser.com/questions/260248/why-do-hard-drives-display-a-size-lower-than-the-true-value?rq=1) – Mokubai Nov 24 '13 at 21:15
  • Really, you'll want to find a discussion forum, not an SE site, as this isn't really an answerable question by anyone but the HDD manufacturers (IMO). Perhaps go see if you can find anyone in the [Chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/) if you want to chat about possibilities. :) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Nov 24 '13 at 21:16
  • http://superuser.com/questions/71974/why-is-the-effective-hard-drive-size-lower-than-the-actual-size – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Nov 24 '13 at 21:16
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    Why? Simple: money. It is cheaper to make a drive with five billion bits than one with 5,368,709,120,000 bits. They are *technically* not lying when they say “500GB”, so of course they will use a definition that benefits themselves because it sounds bigger. – Synetech Nov 24 '13 at 21:19
  • @Synetech yeah I understand it costs money but that very simple business plan to make a bigger disk that would appox match what's advertised on the box would make that hard drive maker a hit with consumers. I feel consumer like simplicity and truth. Though I also realize that there are not that many hard drive makers left in the world. Yet it only takes one and the rest will follow – Sam B Nov 24 '13 at 21:22
  • That's pretty simple if you look at it from the manufacturer's perspective. Smaller drives are cheaper to manufacture. If all your competitors sell 465 GB drives advertised as 500 GB, then you can either: a) do the same, or b) sell real 500 GB disks at the same price (but manufacturing them is more expensive, so your profit is smaller), or c) sell "true" 500 GB drives at a proportionally higher price (but nobody will buy them, because your competitors sell "500 GB" drives at lower prices). What's your choice? – gronostaj Nov 24 '13 at 21:22
  • @gronostaj I believe there is a market with users where people will buy 500GB drive, even a little higher priced as long as it shows up as 500GB on their machine. I am surprised that since HD's have been in existance not one hard drive maker stood up and said hey lets try making a bigger drive and see what happens. – Sam B Nov 24 '13 at 21:26
  • "Trying" is risky when big money is involved. How many people would buy the 500 GiB disk instead of 500 GB one? 1%? What about off-the-shelf PCs and laptops, do you think people who sell them would care to explain that "this 500 GB disk is bigger than that 500 GB disk"? As a customer who *likes simplicity* and thinks that bigger number = better hardware, would you go into details and buy the more expensive computer because it has "that bigger disk"? And finally, why not simply sell those 500 GiB disks as 550 GB? – gronostaj Nov 24 '13 at 21:33
  • `simple business plan to make a bigger disk that would appox match what's advertised on the box`   @SamBudda, that might have been practical and doable 30 or 40 years ago, but in today’s multi-terabyte world, it doesn’t work and you [cannot make it -“approximately match”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Binaryvdecimal.svg). – Synetech Nov 24 '13 at 21:34
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    1 GB is a billion bytes, just as 1 km is a thousand meters and 1 MW is a million Watts. Windows is using GB where it should be using GiB (2^40 bytes). Many other operating systems report hard drive sizes correctly. – Dennis Nov 24 '13 at 21:41

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The answer is simple: Marketing

More space means higher manufacturing cost. Why someone would pay extra money to sell you a disk with actual 500GB space if you still will buy it with 465 gigs?

Jon
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strange walker
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