[geeks] Seagate buckles to math ignorant consumers

[John Francini]

> 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.

Every OS in existence reports its disk usage in multiples of some  
block size that is, in and of itself, a power of 2.


> 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)

But while there sometimes is a small differential in reported clock  
rate versus advertised, it hasn't been growing the way the disparity  
between (10**9)*n sizes and (2**30)*n sizes has been growing.  Every  
time disk capacity goes up, the disparity will continue to widen.  It  
was ignorable when it was small, but now it's approaching 10% or more.