Capacity hd is 18,5 GB instead of 20 GB

[Paarlemoer]

Hello; got my first ipod 20 gb today and saw that the capacity was 18,5 GB instead of 20 GB; does anyone now what uses the missing 1,5 GB. I did not copy any music yet.

Thanks in advance.

[taboo8614]

well if you have any files on their then that is one reason but it's probly because of the ipods os software on the ipod but that noramly does not take that much see if their are any hidden files on the ipod

[Paarlemoer]

Thank you for replying; it's a brandnew one just out of the package; how can I find out if there are any hiddden files?

[CrzyCanuck72]

18.5 GB is how big the hard drive actually is. All iPods (and all hard drives, to be exact) are like this. A 4 GB iPod Mini is only 3.7 GB, a 40 GB iPod is only 37 GB, and a 120 GB internal hard drive is only 110 GB.

It's because of the way a GB is calculated; it's marketed as being 1 000 000 000 bytes, when in reality it is 1 024 000 000 bytes. Therefore, a 20 GB iPod is marketed as having 20 000 000 000 bytes when in reality it only has 20 000 000 000 / 1 024 000 000 = approx. 18.53 GB.

(my numbers aren't exactly correct, but the principle is; that's why hard drives have less space than advertised)