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bill0527 · Jul 31, 2009

I know its normal when you buy a hard drive and format it, that you lose a certain percentage of actual advertised space. I know this already.

I ordered this hard drive from Amazon.com last week:

Western Digital 320GB Scorpio Blue SATAII 5400RPM 2.5IN 8MB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive WD3200BEVT

I replaced my 40GB with this one. I did not back up anything and restore it to my new drive. I didn't have much on my 40GB that I wanted to save anyway. I installed the new drive, and it asked me to format it immediately so I did.

What was left as usable on the drive was a little shocking.

Its showing that I have 263/298GB available to use. So uhhh... what is the 35GB difference being used for? And since its showing that I have 298GB max out of a possible 320GB drive, I assumed that the difference between these two is what I lost during the format process. but no.. there's another 35GB on top of that which isn't accounted for.

That's 18% of my hard drive space gone before I put a single thing on it.

Wario64 · Jul 31, 2009

bill0527 said:
I know its normal when you buy a hard drive and format it, that you lose a certain percentage of actual advertised space. I know this already.

If you knew, you wouldn't be making this thread.

The PS3 takes about 10% for cache.

Gravijah · Jul 31, 2009

PS3 reserves a percent of the space instead of a set number, no?

knitoe · Jul 31, 2009

Wario64 said:
The PS3 takes about 10% for cache.

Now, important question is why. Anyone of clue?

SickBoy · Jul 31, 2009

The difference between the 320 and the 298 is because they're advertising 320 billion bytes, which equals about 298 GB.

At least, that's always been my understanding of hard drive marketing.

The Faceless Master · Jul 31, 2009

knitoe said:
Now, important question is why. Anyone of clue?

because they chose a % and not a fixed number and that applies to any size hdd?

if you put 1TB HDD in there, *bam* like 95GB will be reserved for cache.

knitoe · Jul 31, 2009

The Faceless Master said:
because they chose a % and not a fixed number and that applies to any size hdd?

if you put 1TB HDD in there, *bam* like 95GB will be reserved for cache.

That didn't really answer my question. Why % vs fixed.

Right now, it's just wasting space. What's the benefit?

bill0527 · Jul 31, 2009

knitoe said:
That didn't really answer my question. Why % vs fixed.

Right now, it's just wasting space. What's the benefit?

I'd like to know this as well. What the hell is it caching that it needs 10% of your hard drive, or in my case, almost 12% of my hard drive. Isn't that what game installs are supposed to be for?

DigiMish · Jul 31, 2009

Wario64 said:
If you knew, you wouldn't be making this thread.

The PS3 takes about 10% for cache.

It's not just the PS3 - it's any electronic device that uses hard drives.

JRPereira · Jul 31, 2009

This is a wild guess, but it could be similar to how windows will refuse to defrag a drive with less than [15%?] free space. Probably needs it for performance/maintenance/swapping stuff.

mike23 · Jul 31, 2009

DigiMish said:
It's not just the PS3 - it's any electronic device that uses hard drives.

Why do people think this?

Formatting a hard drive doesn't "reserve" any space except for maybe a few mb for the file system data. The difference between the 320GB advertising and the 298GB max space is due to differences in units. The drives are advertised using a base 10 number system, meaning 320GB = 320 billion bytes. Windows, and basically everything else, uses the 1024 bytes per kb, 1024 kb per mb, etc system, which leads to the discrepancy. 298 GB = ~320 billion bytes when using that system. You don't lose anything. It's just advertisers trying to fool consumers. I'm honestly surprised that it's even allowed.

I'm pretty sure the PS3 uses the reserved space to cache data/textures/etc from games to decrease load time when possible. I have no idea why it wouldn't just used a fixed number when the drive is above a certain threshold though.

DigiMish · Jul 31, 2009

What is the "why do people think this" comment directed at?

After your explanation, you say that you're pretty sure that the PS3 is using up space for its special thing.

mike23 · Jul 31, 2009

DigiMish said:
What is the "why do people think this" comment directed at?

After your explanation, you say that you're pretty sure that the PS3 is using up space for its special thing.

The PS3 is using the 35GB missing from the 263/298GB, but it is NOT using the "missing" space from the 298/320GB discrepancy, nor is any other computer system you could put the HD in.

DigiMish · Jul 31, 2009

Ah, I see now - indeed you are correct that the 35 gigs have disappeared into thin air (thin air being the PS3). Interesting.

Mar · Jul 31, 2009

mike23 said:
It's just advertisers trying to fool consumers. I'm honestly surprised that it's even allowed.

No one is trying to fool anyone. Hard drives and file systems have been around for a very long time. It just happens that as the sizes get increasingly huge the percentage lost by installing a traditional file system on it is also multiplied.

I still find it amusing that people think it's some sort of conspiracy.

wsippel · Jul 31, 2009

mike23 said:
Why do people think this?

Formatting a hard drive doesn't "reserve" any space except for maybe a few mb for the file system data. The difference between the 320GB advertising and the 298GB max space is due to differences in units. The drives are advertised using a base 10 number system, meaning 320GB = 320 billion bytes. Windows, and basically everything else, uses the 1024 bytes per kb, 1024 kb per mb, etc system, which leads to the discrepancy. 298 GB = ~320 billion bytes when using that system. You don't lose anything. It's just advertisers trying to fool consumers. I'm honestly surprised that it's even allowed.

I'm pretty sure the PS3 uses the reserved space to cache data/textures/etc from games to decrease load time when possible. I have no idea why it wouldn't just used a fixed number when the drive is above a certain threshold though.

It's allowed because the drive manufacturers are right and the OS developers are wrong. Operating systems use binary multiples that should be shortened to KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB and so on.

DigiMish · Jul 31, 2009

wsippel said:
It's allowed because the drive manufacturers are right and the OS developers are wrong. Operating systems use binary multiples that should be shortened to KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB and so on.

I think it's a little too late for that:lol

wsippel · Jul 31, 2009

DigiMish said:
I think it's a little too late for that:lol

It is, it would alienate many user. That's why Apple for example plans to report file and disk sizes in base 10 units starting with Snow Leopard.

Osuwari · Jul 31, 2009

SickBoy said:
The difference between the 320 and the 298 is because they're advertising 320 billion bytes, which equals about 298 GB.

At least, that's always been my understanding of hard drive marketing.

bingo!

i hate how all CD/DVD/HDD/etc makers use bullshit numbers and never use the real capacity of the device.

i found out about this when i wondered why my DVD-RWs had only 4.37 GB instead of 4.7 and after doing some reaearch on it.

SPACECADET · Jul 31, 2009

that's why i decided to get a 120GB to replace my 20GB for my 360. i swear it feels like out of the 20GB i'm only able to use 6GB for myself.

knitoe · Jul 31, 2009

SPACECADET said:
that's why i decided to get a 120GB to replace my 20GB for my 360. i swear it feels like out of the 20GB i'm only able to use 6GB for myself.

X360 20GB gives you 13GB. That's why you can install 2 full games.

wsippel · Jul 31, 2009

Osuwari said:
bingo!

i hate how all CD/DVD/HDD/etc makers use bullshit numbers and never use the real capacity of the device.

i found out about this when i wondered why my DVD-RWs had only 4.37 GB instead of 4.7 and after doing some reaearch on it.

Read my post. The manufacturers state the true capacity. Software simply reports it wrong. A 4.7GB DVD-RW has a capacity of 4.7 Gigabytes (GB) which translates to around 4.37 Gibibytes (GiB). No, I didn't make this word up.

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew · Jul 31, 2009

I read the thread title and i LOLed!

filopilo · Jul 31, 2009

a partition is reserved for developers.

Miburou · Jul 31, 2009

Mar_ said:
No one is trying to fool anyone. Hard drives and file systems have been around for a very long time. It just happens that as the sizes get increasingly huge the percentage lost by installing a traditional file system on it is also multiplied.

I still find it amusing that people think it's some sort of conspiracy.

I find it amusing how you didn't read the post you're replying to.

He's talking about the Gigabyte versus Gibibyte way of listing storage size, not the space lost when formatting.

DangerousDave · Jul 31, 2009

Somebody should change the title to "Weekly topic (7-27/8-02) about missing GB in PS3 new hard drive"

The manufacturers state the true capacity. Software simply reports it wrong. A 4.7GB DVD-RW has a capacity of 4.7 Gigabytes (GB) which translates to around 4.37 Gibibytes (GiB). No, I didn't make this word up.

Not exactly.
1 Gb = 1024 Mb
1 Mb = 1024 Kb
1 Kb = 1024 bytes

The problem is that manufactorers consider:
1 Gb = 1.000.000.000 bytes, so a pendrive of 1 Gb has a capacity of 1.000.000.000, instead of the "real" Gb value (1.073.741.824 bytes)

But, with the PS3, there is a extra 10% lost for cache, independently of the size of the HD. I think it has more relation with the fragmentation than cache, that's why it's a percentage value instead of a fixed amount of Gb.

Persona7 · Jul 31, 2009

Cache!

Polk · Jul 31, 2009

DangerousDave said:
Somebody should change the title to "Weekly topic (7-27/8-02) about missing GB in PS3 new hard drive"

Not exactly.
1 Gb = 1024 Mb
1 Mb = 1024 Kb
1 Kb = 1024 bytes

The problem is that manufactorers consider:
1 Gb = 1.000.000.000 bytes, so a pendrive of 1 Gb has a capacity of 1.000.000.000, instead of the "real" Gb value (1.073.741.824 bytes)

The problem is manufacturers attended math class and know that thousand is 1000 not 1024.

wsippel · Jul 31, 2009

DangerousDave said:
Not exactly.
1 Gb = 1024 Mb
1 Mb = 1024 Kb
1 Kb = 1024 bytes

The problem is that manufactorers consider:
1 Gb = 1.000.000.000 bytes, so a pendrive of 1 Gb has a capacity of 1.000.000.000, instead of the "real" Gb value (1.073.741.824 bytes)

But, with the PS3, there is a extra 10% lost for cache, independently of the size of the HD. I think it has more relation with the fragmentation than cache, that's why it's a percentage value instead of a fixed amount of Gb.

See, that's the problem: People don't use the correct units, we can thank OS developers for that I guess. Software uses binary multiples with wrong unit declaration (see IEC 80000-13 for reference):

1GiB (Gibibyte) = 1024MiB
1MiB (Mebibyte) = 1024KiB
1KiB (Kibibyte) = 1024B

Harddrive manufacturers use base 10 units (SI units) with the correct declaration:

1GB (Gigabyte) = 1000MB
1MB (Megabyte) = 1000kB
1kB (Kilobyte) = 1000B

Miburou · Jul 31, 2009

DangerousDave said:
Somebody should change the title to "Weekly topic (7-27/8-02) about missing GB in PS3 new hard drive"

Not exactly.
1 Gb = 1024 Mb
1 Mb = 1024 Kb
1 Kb = 1024 bytes

The problem is that manufactorers consider:
1 Gb = 1.000.000.000 bytes, so a pendrive of 1 Gb has a capacity of 1.000.000.000, instead of the "real" Gb value (1.073.741.824 bytes)

But, with the PS3, there is a extra 10% lost for cache, independently of the size of the HD. I think it has more relation with the fragmentation than cache, that's why it's a percentage value instead of a fixed amount of Gb.

:lol

Do you guys read the posts you reply to, or just scan for certain keywords?

The words 'kilo', 'mega', 'giga', 'tera', etc. are International System of Units prefixes, and denote 1000, 1000000, 1000000000, etc. quantity of units. Even in the IT field, a megabit (as in 20mbps) means a million bits per second, not 1,048,576 bits per second. As wsippel mentioned, everyone except your OS says that 1MB = 1,000,000 bytes.

Trojan X · Jul 31, 2009

Ignoring all the ignorant comments on this thread, I also find this situation very interesting and I wonder if the PS3 will actually use all those GBs for cache.

I understand MBs being used as cache but using that much GBs?! That's unbelievable and, for me, that already signal alarm bells. Also, using does using that much cache actually provide an performance or stability uplift? I doubt it.

If the PS3 truly doesn't use that much GBs as cache, then I wonder if there will be an firmware update that will rectify this massive problem. I do not like the idea of my own machine ripping me off if I did the same thing.

operon · Jul 31, 2009

Question answered, no compiracy etc etc.

Polk · Jul 31, 2009

Trojan X said:
If the PS3 truly doesn't use that much GBs as cache, then I wonder if there will be an firmware update that will rectify this massive problem. I do not like the idea of my own machine ripping me off if I did the same thing.

Don't you understand? NOTHING is missing. PS3 uses incorrect base sytem - binary insteed of decimal.

knitoe · Jul 31, 2009

Polk said:
Don't you understand? NOTHING is missing. PS3 uses incorrect base sytem - binary insteed of decimal.

Did you not read the rest of the thread?

He's talking about how PS3 reserves 10% of HDD for some reason. Thus, in the future, if you install a 1TB drive, PS3 will tak 95 GB. That's caching more than 50GB BR disc.

John_B · Jul 31, 2009

bill0527 said:
I know its normal when you buy a hard drive and format it, that you lose a certain percentage of actual advertised space. I know this already.

That is not true.

Manufacturers have been using decimal prefix to calculate storage space, where software use binary prefix.

1 byte is still 1 byte, but 1 gigabyte/megabyte/kilobyte differs in size depending on the prefix.

1 gigabyte (decimal) = 1000 x 1000 x 1000 = 1.000.000.000 bytes

1 gigabyte (binary) = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 1.073.741.824 bytes

The manufacturer sold you a product containing 320.000.000.000 bytes. Software will calculate that to 298 gigabyte (gibibyte to be exact).

There were huge lawsuits and all kinds of trouble regarding this issue, so 10 years ago or so they came up with new prefixes for binary multiples because the manufacturers were not using the existing prefixes wrong.

Software should technically describe:

1024 bytes as 1 kibibyte (KiB)
1024 KiB as 1 mibibyte (MiB)
1024 MiB as 1 gibibyte (GiB)

DangerousDave · Jul 31, 2009

wsippel said:
See, that's the problem: People don't use the correct units, we can thank OS developers for that I guess. Software uses binary multiples with wrong unit declaration (see IEC 80000-13 for reference):

I see.

That's great! We can blame Microsoft about, at least, one part of the "lost" Gb of the PS3 hard drives!

Trojan X · Jul 31, 2009

knitoe said:
Did you not read the rest of the thread?

He's talking about how PS3 reserves 10% of HDD for some reason. Thus, in the future, if you install a 1TB drive, PS3 will tak 95 GB. That's caching more than 50GB BR disc.

Yes, that was made clear in the first post. The question, to what some people was trying to derive a clear answer for, is whether caching that much space is actually necessary. I believe that was the main point of the original point.

wsippel · Jul 31, 2009

knitoe said:
Did you not read the rest of the thread?

He's talking about how PS3 reserves 10% of HDD for some reason. Thus, in the future, if you install a 1TB drive, PS3 will tak 95 GB. That's caching more than 50GB BR disc.

If it truly is a fixed percentage, it's related to the filesystem and/ or the encryption I guess. Cache would/ should be a fixed absolute size, not a percentage.

Trojan X · Jul 31, 2009

Polk said:
Don't you understand? NOTHING is missing. PS3 uses incorrect base sytem - binary insteed of decimal.

Please stop. You are assuming that I have already came to an conclsuion when I haven't. If you still think my post shows that I have already came up with an conclusion then please accept my apologies for the mis-communication. I have read the question, thought it was an interesting topic because I do not know the answer, then I've read the many many post here and released that hardly anyone came up with a logical answer, until now.

So, you said that the PS3 uses "incorrect" base system. Since you have identified this as "incorrect" then don't you think that there should be some kind of correction? Do you think that this is ok?

Tntnnbltn · Jul 31, 2009

Wow at the number of people who came in here on auto-pilot and didn't bother reading the OP. This has nothing to do with the discrepancy between methods of reporting filesize.

320GB = 298GiB, but the OP doesn't have 298GiB. Even when completely cleared, he only has 263/298GiB free.

Trojan X · Jul 31, 2009

Well. Now the problem/issue has been identified (it seems like a clear problem to me unless someone can come up with a productive answer) I wonder if this issue can be solved via a firmware update.

Do you guys & girls think that an update to the firmware can solve this or is the problems is deeper than what some of us thinks so nothing can be done?

DangerousDave · Jul 31, 2009

Trojan X said:
Well. Now the problem/issue has been identified (it seems like a clear problem to me unless someone can come up with a productive answer) I wonder if this issue can be solved via a firmware update.

Do you guys & girls think that an update to the firmware can solve this or is the problems is deeper than what some of us thinks so nothing can be done?

Well, there is no problem to solve. The notation is GB instead of GiB, but is something common in all the OS, and the 10% of space reserved for cache is not any issue, it's done in that way on purpouse.

Trojan X · Jul 31, 2009

John_B said:
That is not true.

Manufacturers have been using decimal prefix to calculate storage space, where software use binary prefix.

1 byte is still 1 byte, but 1 gigabyte/megabyte/kilobyte differs in size depending on the prefix.

1 gigabyte (decimal) = 1000 x 1000 x 1000 = 1.000.000.000 bytes

1 gigabyte (binary) = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 1.073.741.824 bytes

The manufacturer sold you a product containing 320.000.000.000 bytes. Software will calculate that to 298 gigabyte (gibibyte to be exact).

There were huge lawsuits and all kinds of trouble regarding this issue, so 10 years ago or so they came up with new prefixes for binary multiples because the manufacturers were not using the existing prefixes wrong.

Software should technically describe:

1024 bytes as 1 kibibyte (KiB)
1024 KiB as 1 mibibyte (MiB)
1024 MiB as 1 gibibyte (GiB)

That's true.

So what is your conclusion in respect to the OP?

Trojan X · Jul 31, 2009

DangerousDave said:
Well, there is no problem to solve. The notation is GB instead of GiB, but is something common in all the OS, and the 10% of space reserved for cache is not any issue, it's done in that way on purpouse.

Understood.

So, bill0527, I hope you are satisfied with this answer?

wolfmat · Jul 31, 2009

It's probably strategic assignment of sectors for caching purposes. You want caching sectors to be near the head, so maybe they allocated sections evenly and distribute cached data among them. If they just took like 4GB on a 320GB HDD, it'd be harder to evenly allocate the sections.

Why not ask Sony though? Hit the guys with an e-mail or something.

wsippel · Jul 31, 2009

Tntnnbltn said:
Wow at the number of people who came in here on auto-pilot and didn't bother reading the OP. This has nothing to do with the discrepancy between methods of reporting filesize.

320GB = 298GiB, but the OP doesn't have 298GiB. Even when completely cleared, he only has 263/298GiB free.

The OP actually wondered about both, the space "missing" due to different units (which he attributed to the formatting process) and the reported difference of 35GB. Like I said, I suspect the latter to be somehow related to the encryption Sony uses as the used/ reserved space seems to increase with the overall disk capacity.

John_B · Jul 31, 2009

Trojan X said:
That's true.

So what is your conclusion in respect to the OP?

Unfortunately I can't explain why it takes up so much space. I tried to explain the byte issue because many people don't understand it.

Hitokage · Jul 31, 2009

wsippel said:
It's allowed because the drive manufacturers are right and the OS developers are wrong. Operating systems use binary multiples that should be shortened to KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB and so on.

1KB = 1024 B dates back to the sixties. The units you mention were invented less than a decade ago.

Trojan X · Jul 31, 2009

wmat said:
It's probably strategic assignment of sectors for caching purposes. You want caching sectors to be near the head, so maybe they allocated sections evenly and distribute cached data among them. If they just took like 4GB on a 320GB HDD, it'd be harder to evenly allocate the sections.

Why not ask Sony though? Hit the guys with an e-mail or something.

Hmm... I'll try to ask my SONY contact to talk to the technical department for some thoughts on that subject. It would be good if the original poster also try to contact SONY if he can.

My other purpose for responding here in this thread was to tried and get some form of control by getting people to deliver more constructive answers. I'm glad to see for now that is happening.

DangerousDave · Jul 31, 2009

Hitokage said:
1KB = 1024 B dates back to the sixties. The units you mention were invented less than a decade ago.

That's true. I studied computing (some years ago), I work as a programmer and I've never seen that kibi terms until today. I was really shocked, btw...

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