Actual nano storage size less than advertised?

[bahamutscale]

I just got a 2 MB nano today... However, when I connected to Itunes, the amount displayed on the screen was 1.82 GB? I didnt upload any songs into it yet but apparently .18 of the space was used up? Is this just a problem specifically with my nano or is there a reasoning behind this. If so, how may I dix this so that I can retrieve the full 2 GB that is advertised?

[whocares33]

search it (http://forums.ilounge.com/search.php?s=)


this has been asked many times


and yes it is normal

[bahamutscale]

ummm......what do I search?

[whocares33]

The difference is due to contrasting methods for measuring drive capabilities. The Operating System (Windows) measures the drive’s capacity according to a gigabyte’s real value of 1,073,741,824 bytes. In contrast, drive manufacturers measure a drive’s capacity by rounding the value of a gigabyte to exactly 1 billion bytes. The 73-million-byte-difference, when multiplied by a number of gigabytes, accounts for the discrepancy between the drive’s actual size and advertised capacities.
So if you purchased a 60 Gigabyte drive, you can calculate the true capacity by dividing the 60 billion bytes by the true value of a gigabyte (in bytes). In this example, the drive would have a capacity of approximately 55.9 Gigabytes.


that is from here (http://msrtechnologies.com/Article_MissingSpace.asp)

also the os does take up some space (you do want it to play music, right?)

[bahamutscale]

Wow.... So in reality, if Apple wants to be completely honest, they should advertise 1.82 GB? I cant believe they rounded off that many bytes of space.... Am I still able to store about 500 songs, or did they round that up too?

[jonnyk429]

It depends if your songs are in 128 kbs bitrate and they are all about 4 minutes long. Even then it could be 10 songs off, but is ten songs a big deal?

[CJNeverWinter]

"1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less. Song capacity is based on 4 minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding; photo capacity is based on iPod nano-viewable photos transferred from iTunes."

is the exact disclaimer from Apple's website. all iPods have less size than advertised.

[daleam]

Its the same with any Mp3 player, HDD or memory card.

[mithra]

iPod: About Hard Disk Size (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60955)

Learn why iPod hard disks appear to be smaller than they actually are.

In iPod's About menu (see note 1), the hard disk size is reported as slightly less than the technical specifications for the iPod. The same is true if you connect iPod to your computer in disk mode and from the File menu, choose Get Info (or Show Info for early versions of Mac OS X).

Why the difference? Most hard disk manufacturers measure disk size this way: 1 MB = 1 million bytes (1000 * 1000). A 5 GB hard disk, therefore, is one that holds 5 billion bytes. Computers, including the Macintosh and iPod, measure disk size this way: 1 MB = 1 048 576 bytes (1024 * 1024). The difference in these two calculations is what causes the drive to appear as 4.6 GB on a computer, but actually be a 5 billion byte hard disk.

For more information see "Macintosh Hard Disk: Is It Missing Space? (http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n30065)"

Notes

In iPod 1.1 software, choose Settings then Info.
1 GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.

[zapod]

As well as the differing ways of interpteting a gigabyte of storage, there's also the 'formatted capacity' to consider. This is where the OS (Windows, Mac OS, Linux and even iPod OSes) reserves space to keep track of files it is storing.

The concept is as old as the introduction of hard drives themselves! An interesting history of the HD can be found here (http://www.duxcw.com/digest/guides/hd/hd2.htm).

[sweetchild0207]

what it is, is that it uses the 1.8 part for the games and operating system on the NANO

[L33tG4m3r]

Nearly 99.9 percent of all HardDisk MP3 players have an overestimated capacity. This is because there is an *actual* hard drive capacity, and a capacity with all the software and firmware installed, which takes up a good bit of the HD space. Sometimes manufacturers overestimate or overstate the HD performance NOT to boast or lie to the consumer, but as a result of rounding. For example 3.88GB, which is the *true* HD capacity of my iPod mini. Apple rounded it to 4GB, about 0.12 more than its *actual* capacity, simple because not many consumers *Care* about the missing 0.12GB.

[L33tG4m3r]

Sorry for double posting again :D.
There is also Apple's official disclaimer, which can be found on the website or on the box or your iPod.
1GB=1 billion bytes
Actual Formatted Capacity smaller.

Simply because Mac and Windows PC count 1GB as 1024 MB, which does not fit into 1 billion bytes.