Explanation of hard disk capacity, Explanation, Hard – Lenovo IdeaPad S10 User Manual
Page 167: Disk, Capacity

Explanation
of
hard
disk
capacity
Dear
user,
While
using
your
computer,
you
may
discover
that
the
nominal
hard
disk
capacity
indicated
is
somewhat
different
from
the
disk
capacity
displayed
by
the
operating
system.
For
example,
a
nominal
80
GB
hard
disk
will
appear
as
less
than
80
GB
in
the
operating
system.
This
discrepancy
is
not
an
error
in
hard
disk
installation
nor
any
other
problem,
but
a
normal
phenomenon
of
computers.
This
phenomenon
is
primarily
due
to
the
following
reasons:
1.
Different
standards
used
by
the
manufacturer
and
operating
system
when
calculating
hard
disk
capacity
Hard
disk
manufacturers
use
a
radix
of
1000,
i.e.
1
G
=
1,000
MB,
1
MB
=
1,000
KB,
1
KB
=
1,000
bytes.
However,
when
identifying
hard
disk
capacity,
operating
systems
use
a
radix
of
1024,
i.e.
1
GB
=
1,024
MB,
1
MB
=
1,024
KB,
1
KB
=
1,024
bytes.
The
standard
adopted
by
your
computer
is
that
of
the
hard
disk
manufacturers.
Since
the
standards
adopted
by
the
hard
disk
manufacturer
and
operating
system
are
different,
the
hard
disk
capacity
displayed
by
the
operating
system
will
be
different
from
the
nominal
hard
disk
capacity.
For
example,
if
the
hard
disk
is
nominally
X
G,
even
when
it
is
completely
empty,
the
capacity
displayed
by
the
operating
system
will
be:
X
Ч
1000
Ч
1000
Ч
1000/
(1024
Ч
1024
Ч
1024)
≈
X
×
0.931
G.
If
a
portion
of
the
hard
disk
space
has
been
used
for
some
specific
purpose,
then
the
capacity
indicated
by
the
operating
system
will
be
even
less
than
X
×
0.931
G.
2.
A
portion
of
the
hard
disk
space
is
used
for
specific
purposes
Appendix
D.
Notices
159