Why do drive manufacturers advertise drive capacities in GB/TB when OSs and other programs use GiB/TiB?

[Metallic-Lighght]

This question was inspired by a certain Technology Connections  video saying that OSs use GiB or TiB but drive manufacturers use GB or TB. Why don't they advertise the capacities of the drives using the same way that programs use?

[Moonzy]

because higher number sounds more impressive, would be my guess

[EpiCheeseTime]

GB and TB are in base 10 whereas GiB and TiB are in 2. Easier to calculate for people on the fly to understand.

Plus XiB is bits and XB is bytes. There are 8 bits per byte.

 

Its also the same for networking. most companies say MegaBytes per second but any speed test or anything that shows speed is MegaBits per second

[pythonmegapixel]

My gut instinct says it's because a given amount of storage is always a greater number of GB than GiB, so it allows them to include larger numbers in the marketing.

[Kanna]

You know there is next to no software / OS (not that I use that) measure in GiB or TiB

[pythonmegapixel]

Just now, Kanna said:

You know there is next to no software / OS (not that I use that) measure in GiB or TiB

False.

 

Most of Windows uses GiB, although the abbreviation shown in file explorer is, incorrectly, GB.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, Kanna said:

You know there is next to no software / OS (not that I use that) measure in GiB or TiB

huh, win 10 does it afaik

[Ankh Tech]

wow new stuff here

[Kanna]

Just now, pythonmegapixel said:

False.

 

Most of Windows uses GiB, although the abbreviation shown in file explorer is, incorrectly, GB.

Must be some hidden part of windows then since the stuff I use in windows is GB also everything already says GB wouldn't it need a big rework on the products?

[Kanna]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

huh, win 10 does it afaik

What part of windows 10 never noticed it not that I recall tho I notice the words

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, Kanna said:

What part of windows 10 never noticed it not that I recall tho I notice the words

All of Windows 10 does but it shows as GB/TB (incorrectly)

That's why drives that are 500GB in size show up as like 450GB in Windows because it's using GiB but just showing it to the end user GB which it should show GiB

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, EpiCheeseTime said:

XiB is bits and XB is bytes

It is not. Capital B is bytes and small b is bits, always.

[Lingerr]

When I first learned to use a computer, circa 1990s, KB/MB/GB always represented the 10/20/30th power of base 2. TIme moves thing a lot..

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, Kanna said:

What part of windows 10 never noticed it not that I recall tho I notice the words

AFAIK

2^30 and 10^9 both can be called GB, GiB is only for base 2

it's a slew of mess, really

[Kanna]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

All of Windows 10 does but it shows as GB/TB (incorrectly)

That's why drives that are 500GB in size show up as like 450GB in Windows because it's using GiB but just showing it to the end user GB which it should show GiB

Ohh that's why it answers 2 of my questions where I've seen that some older os had a setting or something similar, and why it shows as smaller

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Felix Huang said:

When I first learned to use a computer, circa 1990s, KB/MB/GB always represented the 10/20/30th power of base 2. TIme moves thing a lot..

 

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

AFAIK

2^30 and 10^9 both can be called GB, GiB is only for base 2

it's a slew of mess, really

GiB is the "correct" name for 2^30 bytes but, colloquially, Gigabyte sounds a lot better than Gibibyte so nowadays the former is often used for both (as it was in the '90s as well).

[Lingerr]

Just now, Sauron said:

 

GiB is the "correct" name for 2^30 bytes but, colloquially, Gigabyte sounds a lot better than Gibibyte so nowadays the former is often used for both (as it was in the '90s as well).

That's probably true, though I can recall in my old MS-DOS days I see mostly just KB/MB in dir etc. It seems like to programmers that time the K-/M-/G-/?- prefix were synonymous to base 2. The old day Linux looked similar. The terminology probably got changed later on.

[Sauron]

5 minutes ago, Felix Huang said:

in my old MS-DOS days I see mostly just KB/MB in dir etc

That's because DOS lies to you on this, as does Windows as @Lurick pointed out.

14 minutes ago, Lurick said:

All of Windows 10 does but it shows as GB/TB (incorrectly)

 

6 minutes ago, Felix Huang said:

The old day Linux looked similar.

Not sure about "the old day Linux" but nowadays ls gives you the byte count or k/M/G, it never displays kB/MB/GB afaik.

[porina]

I don't know the exact timescales but I think the terminology to add usage for MiB etc. was done to try and clear this confusion once and for all. The big problem being that lack of adoption in Windows means most are not exposed to it. In looking it up, the standard was only defined in 1998, and of course Windows pre-dates that quite significantly. Guess MS didn't feel a burning need to update. I have seen the MiB usage in Linux, on the rare occasion I dabble with it. Anyone know where Apple stand on this? I see MB/GB used in screenshots, but don't know if they're doing a MS, or are they using it technically correctly.

 

I did have an argument with someone on this forum on a similar topic before, and I was won over on one point. The scenarios where the power of 2 scale make sense are very limited. For most people, it's only ram that still sticks to it. Storage is quite arbitrary capacity now, so using actual MB/GB etc. is more intuitive for most users.

[Moonzy]

honestly this doesnt trigger me as much as software mixing up B and b

that's like almost an order of magnitude of difference

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, porina said:

The scenarios where the power of 2 scale make sense are very limited.

in the end, does it have to make sense to consumers tho?

"this game is 10GB" vs "this game is 9.8GB"

i doubt the average consumers would care if it's GB₂ or GB₁₀

 

it's all just an arbitrary scale to them anyways

just like centimeter, who cares if it's 1/(3x10⁹) distance travelled by light in 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom

 

we just know approximately how long it is and use it as is

[porina]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

in the end, does it have to make sense to consumers tho?

"this game is 10GB" vs "this game is 9.8GB"

i doubt the average consumers would care if it's GB₂ or GB₁₀

It wouldn't be a problem if units were consistently used. That's the real problem here. People buy a 1000GB storage device, Windows shows it as 931GB, with 69GB (nice) disappearing. Do the games downloaders use one scale or the other? I don't know. You might have more or less space relative to what you need.

[whm1974]

Given that Microcomputers has always use Off/On Binary, due that is how Semiconductors work, shouldn't Storage Devices be required by Law to measure the amount of Storage in base 2 instead base 10?  

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, whm1974 said:

Given that Microcomputers has always use Off/On Binary, due that is how Semiconductors work, shouldn't Storage Devices be required by Law to measure the amount of Storage in base 2 instead base 10?  

i would agree on this but it's probably too late to do anything about it now

[Metallic-Lighght]

This seems like a very minor problem, but ever since i found that out from the video I have linked in my other comment, I am just a little mad that this stupid mess even exists.