[geeks] Seagate buckles to math ignorant consumers

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: John Francini <francini at mac.com>
>Date: 2007/11/02 Fri AM 09:38:20 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Seagate buckles to math ignorant consumers

>I'm sorry, I fully side with those "math-ignorant" customers.
>
>1K=1,000 unless it has to do with computer memory. Then, 1K=1024.   
>Period.
>
>Computer memory--either on disk or in RAM--isn't addressed in powers  
>of 10; it's addressed in powers of 2.
>
>If I buy a, say, 250GB disk, I expect it to have (2**30)*250 bytes of  
>capacity.  Not (10**9)*250 bytes. And the disk drive industry has  
>been undersizing disks for, oh, 20+ years.  And this problem has  
>stuck in my craw for the same 20+ years.
>
>If you put one of those "250 GB" (decimal) disks into your computer,  
>what's it going to report: 250 GB of space?  NO! It'll report  
>whatever the decimal capacity is, expressed in powers-of-2 Gigabytes.
>
>And because it does that, most people would believe they're not  
>getting what they've paid for, especially since the computer's  
>telling you. It's because they're not.

If Windows/other OS reported the number of 10**9 bytes and not 2**30 I contend this issue would never have come up, and that seems to be your assertion above ("And becuase it does that, most people would beileve..."), but since HD Mfg. don't control how Windows/other OS report available storage, I agree they are not at fault here.

Apparently I am in the minority. I'm OK with that :^)

What's next, CPUs that don't really operate at stated clock rates - I bought a 2.4 GHz CPU, but it is really operating at 2.39 GHz? (and no, I'm not mudding the waters by using G for Giga, I think we all understand what the "G" in GHz stands for, 10**9 hertz)

Lionel