Question regarding (WD) HDD's

[DotoreN]

I recently bought a WD passport 500gb. I plugged it into my computer and noticed it only had 465GB available.

 

My main rig is also advertised as a WD 1TB HDD, but I can only use 931GB.

 

Where are the other gigabytes? and is this false advertising?

[Andrew Sh]

I recently bought a WD passport 500gb. I plugged it into my computer and noticed it only had 465GB available.

My main rig is also advertised as a WD 1TB HDD, but I can only use 931GB.

Where are the other gigabytes? and is this false advertising?

About 100 explanations for that online its like that for every HDD and is to do with the 1000/1024 translation that most people don't know about

[LongbowX404]

I saw a thread like this recently.

It isn't false advertising, I believe on the bottom or back of the package there is some explanation to this.

 

[ZetZet]

Manufacturers use gigabytes which are 1000 megabytes or 1 000 000 000 bytes.

Computers use gibibytes which are 1024 mebibytes or 1073741824 bytes.

Windows uses wrong names for the units that's about it.

[samcool55]

It's because this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

It explains it all!... But it's normal, everyone has that.

[Techpumpkin_WD]

Hello there, 

 

The confusion comes from the of the different measurement standards that are often used. We have a KB article explaining the situation here:http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=3CK31x. All HDD manufacturers report the capacity based on the definition for gigabyte  given by  International System of Units  and  International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) . That would mean that all storage media size will be reported in GB where 1 GB =  1000000000 bytes.