Did you know - Computer Storage?

Did you know why our computer storage or external storage have less

space than advertised?

It is because the manufacturers decided to rate most drive capacities

 based on the standard base 10 numbers we are all familiar with.

Therefore, one Megabyte equals one million bytes while one Gigabyte
equals one billion bytes.

When you bought a  300GB external, it shows only 279GB.

WHY???

Let me explain here.

All computer data is stored in a binary format as either a one or zero.

Meaning base 2 format.

1 MB = 1024 byte. (2^10)

1GB = 1,073,741,824 byte.

and so on...

So, when you bought a 300GB, the computer will calculate it by,

300GB / 1.07374GB = 279.397 (Rounded Down) = 279GB

Any more questions please post at comments below. Thank you.

For more info , please visit : http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081231101557AAgvN70