| | Hard disk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
 | | Hard drive manufacturers typically specify drive capacity using 'SI prefixes', that is, the SI definition of the prefixes "giga" and "mega." This is largely for historical reasons, since disk drive storage capacities exceeded millions of bytes |
| | Operating systems and their utilities, particularly visual operating systems such as Microsoft's various Windows operating systems frequently report capacity using binary prefixes which results in a discrepancy between the drive manufacturer's stated capacity and the system's reported capacity. |
| | Obviously the difference becomes much more noticeable in reported capacities in the multiple gigabyte range, and users will often notice that the volume capacity reported by their OS is significantly less than that advertised by the hard drive manufacturer. |
| en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Hard_disk (6449 words) |
