11-08-2008, 07:03 PM
That's just about right. This is where that disclaimer on hard drive sizes of them being decimal, i.e. 320 GB is 320,000,000,000 bytes, comes into play. Most memory and storage capacities listed on computers are binary, where 1 KB is 1024 bytes. So if you convert 320 GB in decimal terms to binary, it comes out close to 298 GB.
Related to this, here is a terminology specification out there that would mark binary kilos, megas and gigas with an "i" to distinguish them from the decimal ones. That would be KiB, MiB and GiB. But the terminology really has not caught on except with a small proportion of computer professionals.
Related to this, here is a terminology specification out there that would mark binary kilos, megas and gigas with an "i" to distinguish them from the decimal ones. That would be KiB, MiB and GiB. But the terminology really has not caught on except with a small proportion of computer professionals.