4 TB Samsung M.2 990 Pro is showing....

[karmazyn1]

.....3.68 TB free space after disk initilization.
I have got it from Samsung, did I get faulty model? Thanks.

[Electric Cupcake]

You can reformat with the smallest size blocks to use space more efficiently, but there will always be some space used by firmware and file table and overprovisioning cache and whatnot.

[Omega]

Disk manufacturers calculate disk size in kilobytes (1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes), Windows uses kibibytes (1 kibibyte = 1024 bytes).

4 terabyte is 3.725 tebibyte.

[Andrius227]

Normal. I have a 20TB hard drive that shows up as 18.1TB.

[karmazyn1]

Omega님이 먼저 게시:

Disk manufacturers calculate disk size in kilobytes (1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes), Windows uses kibibytes (1 kibibyte = 1024 bytes).

4 terabyte is 3.725 tebibyte.

Yes ,I think that it was showing 3.7, I must have filled it with something when I read 3.68. So there is nothing wrong with it? Thanks

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Don't look at Free Space, right click the drive in THIS PC and go to Properties.
What does it show for Capacity. That's the total size after Partition + Format.

1TB = approx 931 actual GB
4x 931 GB = 3.724 TB

But yea it's always been this way.
It's easier for Manufactures to put a rounded off # on the box or product description / model then to give an actual. Cause actual can always various based on how it's partitioned and formatted. The same is done for RAM and GPU VRAM; those #s are rounded off. Otherwise we'd all be saying 4096 MB of RAM or VRAM; rather then 4GB for example.

[[N]ebsun]

long time ago disk space was calculated by binary free space, 1024kb in 1mb - but in recent years there was a change to use si units for kilo, mega, etc which use 1000 not 1024
cant remember when/how it was changed, I just remember that kilo used to mean 1024

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_information
https://superuser.com/questions/504/why-are-hard-drives-never-as-large-as-advertised

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte

Early home computer systems would often advertise using the 1024 convention, hence the naming of the Commodore 64, Commodore 128, and the Amstrad CPC 464.
On modern systems, all versions of Microsoft Windows including the newest (as of 2019) Windows 10 divide by 1024 and represent a 65,536-byte file as "64 KB".[9] Conversely, Mac OS X Snow Leopard and newer represent this as 66 kB, rounding to the nearest 1000 bytes.[15] File sizes are reported with decimal prefixes.[16]
As of 2016, the binary interpretation was still used in marketing and billing by some telecommunication companies, such as Vodafone,[17] AT&T,[18] Orange[19] and Telstra.[20]

A kilobyte (kB) is a number used to measure storage space on computer hard drives or computer memory. A kilobyte originally meant 1024 bytes. Over time the meaning changed and today it is often used to mean 1000 bytes. This created some confusion as a "kilo" normally means 1000.[1] The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) now defines a kilobyte as being 1000 bytes.[2] According to the IEC, the correct name for 1,024 bytes is a kibibyte.[1] This naming convention, however, never really caught on.[3]

Using SI units for computers, which use binary, doesn't really make much sense..
also changing the meaning of SI units (kilo-, mega-, giga-, etc) in the context of computers is not possible since those words are very well and strictly defined. (historic use of kilo to mean 1024 is no longer considered correct - kibibyte is the new meaning for 1024 bits in an 8 bit per byte system)
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibibyte
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tebibyte

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte


There are also issues with marketing people not understanding, not caring, or mistaking the usage of the lower and upper case characters for kb KB kB etc - which all have different meaning - and then there is also the consumer who may also not understand, not care, or mistake the lower / upper case meanings..

[Cathulhu]

Your drive is fine. It's marketing that is the problem. It is honest (technically) but wording it deceptively.

[AyaSensei067]

It's normal, I have a 250 GB SATA SSD and it shows as 232 GB.

[Carlsberg]

Short answer is that manufacturers use the metric system of measure, computers don't.

[MonkehMaster]

the amount number they use, is a marketing usage, they are always less than whats advertised.

look at the labels on all your drives, then look at what windows reports the size of them are.

[karmazyn1]

Thanks a lot. I am so happy that there is nothing wrong with this drive. It is quite fast and I would like to keep it. It is veru quiet too.

[MonkehMaster]

just dont fill them to max capacity, they need head room to move and replace bad sectors/blocks, but also take a performance hit when filled.

[nullable]

smallcat님이 먼저 게시:

1 terabytes =2^40 bytes = 1 .0995 trillon bytes . For me its marketing .

Tera means 10^12, sometimes, colloquially, "incorrectly" we use it as 2^40, but any time, like it or not, 10^12 is being used it's a tough row to hoe to say that usage is marketing or in any way incorrect. At any rate it's clearly stated on the box that they're using the decimal prefix.

If we ever get tired of dealing with that ambiguity we can use the binary prefixes to solve the problem: kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi but they've been around for decades and we haven't rushed off to fix our usage yet.

[karmazyn1]

MonkehMaster님이 먼저 게시:

just dont fill them to max capacity, they need head room to move and replace bad sectors/blocks, but also take a performance hit when filled.

So if this is not a system drive I still should leave some for sectors thingy? So if I have 3.7 TB left I should leave 100 gb free? Many thanks.

[nullable]

smallcat님이 먼저 게시:

No matter how they calculate the ambiguity comes from the difference between the binary and decimal system . For me it is marketing shenanigans .

And the SI prefix is a decimal value, and the binary meaning is something we just co-opted from the existing SI decimal prefix. Of course the ambiguity comes from trying to use one terminology for two things in ways that sometimes overlap, which is certainly an argument against doing that. And an argument for adopting the existing, but neglected binary prefixes.

But alas, decades of momentum and general dislike of change makes everyone resistant to it. So the confusion and opinions continue.