THE ANALOGY: Whether your height is reported in feet or meters, you don't get any taller or shorter.
1,000,000,000 bytes = Decimal GB
1,073,741,824 bytes = Binary GB
So, one Decimal GB = 0.93132 Binary GB
The hard drive size printed on its retail packaging is a count of the bytes reported in units of Decimal GB. The hard drive size reported by Windows is a count of the same number of bytes, but with different units of measurement, namely the Binary GB.
So, you can expect Windows to display the size of any hard drive at about 93% of the advertised number of GB (or almost 7% fewer GB).
File System NTFS
I have an older Western Digital 160GB HDD that when formated is 149GB. I was wondering if losing 11GB when formating was more than usual?
Thanks,
Bob

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