Hard Drive Makers sued over drive size claims

***Veridian3*** · Sep 19, 2003, 09:16 AM

Head over to yahoo business news for the full story:

"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A group of computer owners has filed a lawsuit against some of the world's biggest makers of personal computers, claiming that their advertising deceptively overstates the true capacity of their hard drives. "

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...puters_suit_dc

krazy1 · Sep 19, 2003, 09:27 AM

I wonderd how long it would take for something like this to happen..... I do agree with them ..... kinda crappy that you buy a 120GB HD and all you get is 111GB..... I understand why that is..... I just think if they sell the drive with 120GB I should get the 120GB of storage and the HD makers files should be an additional 9GB (or whatever that drive requires) on that drive... but I won't start any lawsuits over it...hehehe

Dyre Straits · Sep 19, 2003, 09:53 AM

Yes, I agree, too, that the advertising needs to match the correct capacity. It's been something I've been annoyed at since they started putting GB drives on the market.

Rayder · Sep 19, 2003, 10:00 AM

While they're at it, why not sue CRT monitor makers for lying about the screen size. I have a 21" monitor sitting downstairs right next to a 20" TV. Guess which one has the larger screen?

My 19" monitor only has 18" of viewable. To me, it should have been called an 18" monitor. Let's all sue 'em!

From what I remember reading from a Western Digital statement years ago, the numbers don't add up correctly because they rate the sizes based on 1000k = 1meg, not the correct 1024k = 1meg, so it ends up being less REAL space when figured that way. Also, the physical format will eat a little space too. I don't know, it still sounds like a scam to me though. I hope the peeps win their suit, maybe harddrive companies will be more honest with size specifications....or at least more forthcoming on how they arrive at some of the size ratings that they come up with.

krazy1 · Sep 19, 2003, 10:05 AM

Well in regards to the monitor thing... I 1/2 agree with you BUT if you look at the box for the monitor you will usually find something like this: 21" (20 VI) meaning 21" monitor with 20" Viewable Image...... still kinda stinks but at least they tell you on the box unlike HD makers....

Al_Vampyre · Sep 19, 2003, 11:20 AM

Bout time the 'puter manufacturers were brought into line with the rest of them!

WaltC · Sep 19, 2003, 11:58 AM

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/pro...Model=WD2500JB

Quote:

1 Western Digital defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes

Heh...

The fact that this information is displayed in the manufacturer's specification data is probably why the lawsuit doesn't seek to name hard drive manufacturers directly, but is naming only system OEMs in the suit (Apple, Dell, etc.)

Still, does anyone doubt that there's no reason for them to round off the numbers this way except to advertise bigger drives than they actually sell? It could be though that this practice started awhile back when file systems took up a lot of room when formatting, so that your unformatted space was always more than your formatted space, due to drive space consumed by the file system.

IMO, the suit doesn't have a prayer, as the system OEMs will simply state that they are advertising what they are told by the hard drive manufacturers, and those manufacturers will be able to state that the information is disclosed to the public in their product specification sheets.

"Where there's a lawyer, there's a lawsuit"....

Rayder · Sep 19, 2003, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by krazy1
Well in regards to the monitor thing... I 1/2 agree with you BUT if you look at the box for the monitor you will usually find something like this: 21" (20 VI) meaning 21" monitor with 20" Viewable Image...... still kinda stinks but at least they tell you on the box unlike HD makers....

Yeah, it says that....but many websites and store ads DON'T.
The way I understand it, a 21" monitor's CRT is 21", it just has about an inch or more of the screen buried under the casing. The edges of most monitors are often severely abberated, that's why it's hidden. But still, the 21" monitor we have is SMALLER screen-wise than our 20" TV. It's still a deception.

Time to call 1-800-SUE-THE-BASTARDS.

Davidgt · Sep 19, 2003, 01:05 PM

sence I know alittle about HDD`s . I will try to explain this. The accual platter of the hdd can hold for example a 20 gig platter. Hdd`s are made of iron particials that are magnatized. Eather a binary 1 or 0 when a hdd is new it has all 0`s. Now the 20 gig platter can hold 20 gig worth of data. BUT! This is where you loose the storage capicity. When you format. Formating creates a map on the hdd kinda like a filling cabnet. So the hdd can find the peice of data its looking for faster without searching the whole hdd.
and also writes a MBR or master boot record. loosing more space. When you format eather fat (looses alot of space) fat32 looses alittle less or nfts which is even maybe 100 meg per gig of hdd. linux/unix file system is typically the best about not taking as much space.

Quote:

1 Western Digital defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes

That is true for all hdd makers and it clearly states that on the box.
BTW 1gig = 1,024,000,000

Yes I know my grammer sucks , but I hope this helped a few people understand

nForcer · Sep 19, 2003, 01:39 PM

In otherwords its UNformatted capacity is ..... its formatted capacity will vary.<-- I believe some drive makers put this on their boxes or in the documentation that no one reads.

brc64 · Sep 19, 2003, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Davidgt
BTW 1gig = 1,024,000,000

Here is something I'm confused on, and I'm getting conflicting answers.

Everybody agrees that there are 1024 bytes in a kilobyte.
How many kilobytes are in a megabyte? I always thought it was 1024 again, but some people are telling me that it's actually 1000. The number you suggest for a gigabyte follows this theory.

Code:

1024   *  1000    *   1000   =   1024000000
 ^^        ^^          ^^           ^^
bytes    kilobyte    megabyte    gigabyte

or should it be?

Code:

1024   *  1024    *   1024   =   1073741824
 ^^        ^^          ^^           ^^
byte    kilobyte    megabyte    gigabyte

- Me

JavaFox · Sep 19, 2003, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by brc64
Here is something I'm confused on, and I'm getting conflicting answers.

Everybody agrees that there are 1024 bytes in a kilobyte.
How many kilobytes are in a megabyte? I always thought it was 1024 again, but some people are telling me that it's actually 1000. The number you suggest for a gigabyte follows this theory.

It's 1024 kilobyte per megabyte. These number are not arbitrary. The reason is that the amounts are definied by the binary system, not the decimal system. While hard-drive manufactures want to call a megabye 10^3 (1000) kilobytes, it is actually 2^10 (1024). All of the HDD measurements are based on the binary system.

Vampyromaniac · Sep 19, 2003, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by brc64
or should it be?

Code:

1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 1073741824 ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ byte kilobyte megabyte gigabyte

- Me

Yes it is 1073741824, not 1024000000.

And technically kilo- always means 1000 and giga- always means 1,000,000,000
The technically proper prefix for binary (based on 1024) measurements are kibi- and gibi-
But kilo- has gotten used both ways with Bytes so long, confusions like this happen, and HDD makers can use it to their advantage.
People probably didn't want to be bothered with kibi- early on.

nForcer · Sep 19, 2003, 11:09 PM

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world who understand Binary. Those that do, and those that don't.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Sep 20, 2003, 09:05 AM

DUH... these guys are total retards.... (By their names there all foreigners bringing up this suit anyways). They need to get a computer for dummies book and read it. It's not the hardware manufactures fault that many consumers are undereducated and plain dumb and classified as retards when it comes to computers or any electronics for that mater. Itâ€™s because they donâ€™t want to know and they pay great $$$ just to not to have to learn.

The advertised sizes are an unformatted capacity / many times is because the definition of a mega byte differs â€¦..

This world is to darn sue crazy whatâ€™s next suing the weather man because it rained?

Argâ€¦.

Judas · Sep 20, 2003, 09:43 AM

.......the world has gone sue crazy..it's retarded..... and it is advertised correctly...but then again, what is correctly for an HD's size?....

Mathamatically, all the drives out on the market are correctly labled.... (usually)...

But when you start counting small defects.... and all the garbage (system controllers) and how they handle everything... it all goes downhill from there.....

brc64 · Sep 20, 2003, 02:14 PM

I have a 120 GB harddrive in my computer that's really only 114. The reason I'm missing 6 gigs isn't because of the master boot record or the file table my file system uses (those probably comprise a few megs at most). The reason I'm missing 6 gigs is because on the side of the box, Maxtor says "A gigabyte (GB) means 1 billion bytes."

I don't think these people are stupid, I think they're just fed up with the misleading advertising they've been subjected to for all these years. I know better, but it still bothers me that they do it.. does that make me a "stupid user"?

- Me

Judas · Sep 21, 2003, 12:54 AM

stupid no.... you have your right to the opinion.... as you KNOW that this is not completely true.... i think on a 120(114) gb drive... all of 16 mb or 32 is used up when using NTFS..... that's it...

Sep 19, 2003, 09:16 AM	#1
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 2,999 Rep Power: 72	Hard Drive Makers sued over drive size claims Head over to yahoo business news for the full story: "LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A group of computer owners has filed a lawsuit against some of the world's biggest makers of personal computers, claiming that their advertising deceptively overstates the true capacity of their hard drives. " http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...puters_suit_dc

Sep 19, 2003, 09:27 AM	#2
krazy1 Live from the Dungeon Join Date: May 2003 Location: Between the SubWoofers Posts: 1,395 Rep Power: 0	I wonderd how long it would take for something like this to happen..... I do agree with them ..... kinda crappy that you buy a 120GB HD and all you get is 111GB..... I understand why that is..... I just think if they sell the drive with 120GB I should get the 120GB of storage and the HD makers files should be an additional 9GB (or whatever that drive requires) on that drive... but I won't start any lawsuits over it...hehehe __________________

Sep 19, 2003, 10:00 AM	#4
Rayder Mostly lurking lately.... Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 2,037 Rep Power: 51	While they're at it, why not sue CRT monitor makers for lying about the screen size. I have a 21" monitor sitting downstairs right next to a 20" TV. Guess which one has the larger screen? My 19" monitor only has 18" of viewable. To me, it should have been called an 18" monitor. Let's all sue 'em! From what I remember reading from a Western Digital statement years ago, the numbers don't add up correctly because they rate the sizes based on 1000k = 1meg, not the correct 1024k = 1meg, so it ends up being less REAL space when figured that way. Also, the physical format will eat a little space too. I don't know, it still sounds like a scam to me though. I hope the peeps win their suit, maybe harddrive companies will be more honest with size specifications....or at least more forthcoming on how they arrive at some of the size ratings that they come up with. __________________

Sep 19, 2003, 10:05 AM	#5
krazy1 Live from the Dungeon Join Date: May 2003 Location: Between the SubWoofers Posts: 1,395 Rep Power: 0	Well in regards to the monitor thing... I 1/2 agree with you BUT if you look at the box for the monitor you will usually find something like this: 21" (20 VI) meaning 21" monitor with 20" Viewable Image...... still kinda stinks but at least they tell you on the box unlike HD makers.... __________________

Sep 19, 2003, 11:20 AM	#6
Al_Vampyre DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Scotland Posts: 1,512 Rep Power: 55 System Specs	Bout time the 'puter manufacturers were brought into line with the rest of them! __________________ "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad" - Brian O'Driscoll - Ireland Rugby Team 2009 Grand Slam winning Captain.

Sep 19, 2003, 01:39 PM	#10
nForcer Twice the fun! Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,404 Rep Power: 0	In otherwords its UNformatted capacity is ..... its formatted capacity will vary.<-- I believe some drive makers put this on their boxes or in the documentation that no one reads.

Sep 19, 2003, 11:09 PM	#14
nForcer Twice the fun! Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,404 Rep Power: 0	There are only 10 kinds of people in the world who understand Binary. Those that do, and those that don't.

Sep 20, 2003, 09:05 AM	#15
The_Neon_Cowboy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,135 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	DUH... these guys are total retards.... (By their names there all foreigners bringing up this suit anyways). They need to get a computer for dummies book and read it. It's not the hardware manufactures fault that many consumers are undereducated and plain dumb and classified as retards when it comes to computers or any electronics for that mater. Itâ€™s because they donâ€™t want to know and they pay great $$$ just to not to have to learn. The advertised sizes are an unformatted capacity / many times is because the definition of a mega byte differs â€¦.. This world is to darn sue crazy whatâ€™s next suing the weather man because it rained? Argâ€¦. __________________

Sep 20, 2003, 02:14 PM	#17
brc64 Zeeky H. Bomb Join Date: May 2002 Location: Evansville, IN Posts: 826 Rep Power: 0	I have a 120 GB harddrive in my computer that's really only 114. The reason I'm missing 6 gigs isn't because of the master boot record or the file table my file system uses (those probably comprise a few megs at most). The reason I'm missing 6 gigs is because on the side of the box, Maxtor says "A gigabyte (GB) means 1 billion bytes." I don't think these people are stupid, I think they're just fed up with the misleading advertising they've been subjected to for all these years. I know better, but it still bothers me that they do it.. does that make me a "stupid user"? - Me