Topic: My new 2GB hard drive formats to...get this...2 GB!!!

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

When did this start happening? Purchased a 2GB HD a few month back (got a decent deal so I grabbed it for future use).

Just set it up in a 2x External Enclosure with an older 2GB drive.

The old drive formats to 1.81GB
The new one formats to 1.99GB.

I guess stores got tired of people trying to return drives because they felt like they got shortchanged.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

I know the (2) 2gb HDDs I have have Proprietory SF installed (HDD Managers) that take up a little space...  On my Western Digital, this "thingy" actually shows up as a separate drive (annoying)...

One day, I'll reformat and I'm hoping that gets rid of it...

Terry

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

BTW, This was an OEM drive.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

One day, I'll reformat and I'm hoping that gets rid of it...

It's much worse than that.  It contains software that auto-installs under windows.  Some people consider it spyware.
It is very difficult to remove because it exists in the drive's firmware.  Formatting will not remove it. It looks like a virtual CD to operating systems.  This pissed a lot of folks off, and people have wasted huge amounts of time trying to get rid of it.

My DAW is a dedicated XP box with legacy software.  I also use it for scanning photos, also with legacy proprietary software.  It has no network connection.  I do not install any new software on it.  It is all part of my strategy to keep it stable and hassle free.  It works!  So if I plug a new "blank" drive in and it tries to sneak software onto the system, it is a huge WTF moment.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-Smartware/Smartware-Removal/td-p/308044

[H₂O]

WD sold 300 GB drives w/ 320 GB unformatted capacity back in the day and they would format too 300 GB using NTFS.

They did advertise on the box a Free extra 20 GB.

My guess is your drive is 2.15TB unformatted and not 2 TB - nice bonus though

When I worked at IBM years ago they got sued because one of their 15" monitors only had a viewable screen of 14.6" or so -> This led IBM to disclose both Tube size and viewable area on boxes and in ads.

[fleish]

I wonder if they've finally started to pad things to account for the poor QC on lower end consumer drives like they do for SSD. So when you hit some bad blocks - you've got extra space to relocate data to

[Chuck]

I wonder if they've finally started to pad things to account for the poor QC on lower end consumer drives like they do for SSD. So when you hit some bad blocks - you've got extra space to relocate data to

I like that explanation.

[rastasean]

WD sold 300 GB drives w/ 320 GB unformatted capacity back in the day and they would format too 300 GB using NTFS.

They did advertise on the box a Free extra 20 GB.

My guess is your drive is 2.15TB unformatted and not 2 TB - nice bonus though

When I worked at IBM years ago they got sued because one of their 15" monitors only had a viewable screen of 14.6" or so -> This led IBM to disclose both Tube size and viewable area on boxes and in ads.

He actually wrote GB but hopefully it is TB.

What I have seen is that hard drive manufacturers define a megabye as 1000MB and not 1024

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=110
As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes.

[H₂O]

I wonder if they've finally started to pad things to account for the poor QC on lower end consumer drives like they do for SSD. So when you hit some bad blocks - you've got extra space to relocate data to

I think SSD manufacturers pad more as Flash ram, cell by cell, does not last as long as hard disk areas on HDD platers (or has a lower MTBF rate at a smaller level) so the more they pad the higher the can increase the over all lifetime.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

He actually wrote GB but hopefully it is TB.

What I have seen is that hard drive manufacturers define a megabye as 1000MB and not 1024

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=110
As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes.

HA!! Too early in the morning for me. Yes TB.

I'm in to process of reorganizing all of my data on to less drives (1 pair of 2TB drives and 1 pair of 1.5TB drives...mirrored). One of the drives I'm getting rid of is a measly 320GB. I remember when I bought that that it had plenty of room for all of my data. I'm hovering a hair of 2TB of total data now.

[F.O.Bean]

I'm cornfused, are you talking about 2gb or 2TB

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

I'm cornfused, are you talking about 2gb or 2TB

It's a 2TB drive. Don't know why I typed GB.

[fleish]

I'm cornfused, are you talking about 2gb or 2TB

It's a 2TB drive. Don't know why I typed GB.

Because you secretly want to buy one 

Seagate ST32550W 2GB Hard Drive

1 new from $28.00 1 refurbished from $25.19

What a bargain!