Why Your 128GB USB Drive Shows Only 115GB: A Storage Mystery Solved
Have you ever bought a 128GB USB drive, only to find that your computer shows it as 115GB or less? This isn't a trick or a manufacturing defect; it's a result of how storage is measured and formatted. The Decimal vs. Binary Conundrum Decimal Measurement: Storage manufacturers use the decimal system (base 10) to calculate storage. This means 1GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Binary Measurement: Computers, however, use the binary system (base 2), where 1GB is actually 1,073,741,824 bytes. This difference in measurement can lead to a significant discrepancy in perceived storage capacity. File System Overhead When you format a storage device, the file system (like NTFS or FAT32) takes up some space for its own operations. This overhead further reduces the usable storage capacity. Why Does This Happen? Marketing Practices: Manufacturers often advertise storage capacity using decimal measurements, which are easier to understand for consumers. Technical Limitations: The binary s