Computer Makers Sued Over Hard-Drive Size Claims

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=3470394&section=news

Sounds good to me.

Dan

 

Yeha I read about that the other day, but I think that they'll be
buggered... a gigabyte is 1000 bytes... a gibabyte is 1024, so *I* think
they'll lose.

 

Surely they should be suing Microsoft as its their OS that formats the drive
using whatever file system, which makes some of the HDD unuseable??

A blank hdd drive has its full capacity doesnt it?

*Off to have a look at a blank hdd*

Rider

 

"According to the lawsuit, computer hard drive capacities are described
in promotional material in decimal notation, but the computer reads and
writes data to the drives in a binary system.

The result is that a hard drive described as being 20 gigabytes would
actually have only 18.6 gigabytes of readable capacity, the lawsuit
said."

Completely daft and a typical American attempt to extort money from
companies through legal action. Actually they steal it from all the other
customers of the companies concerned.

The internationally recognised definition of "mega" is 1 million (not
1048576) and "giga" is 1000 million (not 1073418xxx) because the terms
are taken from the metric system, which is based in base 10 and not in
base 2.

There is a common usage of kilo, mega, giga and tera in binary terms but
their metric equivalents are equally common in the computer marketplace.

 

Somehow I don't think you will be retained as an expert witness!

Fred

 

The terms kilo, mega, giga and tera are from the metric system where they
refer respectively to 1000, 1000000, 1000000000 and 1000000000000.

If you think this is a great idea then I presume you're willing to pay
more for your hard drives in the future to cover the costs should this
stupid lawsuit succeed.

 

The advertising is playing on the fact that people think a kB is 1000 bytes,
when it's actually 1024 bytes, and a MB is not 1,000,000 bytes, it's really
1024 x 1024 bytes, which is 1,048,576 bytes. By reversing the logic their
advertising makes it looks like the drives have more capacity than they
really do - nothing to do with the O/S. This has been going on for years.

Alan

 

That's pathetic, can only happen in litigation land.

Gavin

 

Yeah I agree. If thats their biggest concern in life that they feel the need
to sue over it, then they must have pretty comfortable lives.

Rider

 

Some years ago a Silicon Valley software nerd sued his company for
unpaid salary.

At the time job placement ads customarily listed salaries as 50K or 90K
etc.
He argued that if he got hired for a computer job paying 60K, he should
be paid 60*1024=$61440 not $60000

Not sure if he won the case (or worked in Silicon Valley again)

Pete

 

Didn't say that it was a great idea, only that they are not correct in
assuming that kilo meant 1024

 

Bollocks

 

Kilo means 1000, Mega means 1,000,000. These terms come from the metric
system defined something like 200 years ago.

 

LOL

 

It sounds pretty dumb to me. It's always been that way, and anyone who
knows anything knows that.

Cheers,

Cliff
--

The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign
that the conspiracy is working.

 

Space on the hard drive is, of course, used for the file system. Select a
whole lot of files, right click, properties. Notice the descrepancy between
"size" and "size on disk"? Information must be stored on the drive about
things like which sectors the file begins and ends at, file attributes, the
file's name, etc.

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

 

Sounds really stupid to me.

The claimants are must be real stupid.
Everyone, except them, knows what 1MB means.
They must have more money than brains.
But very soon they will have less money!

Maybe they should sue sugar manufacturers because a 1kg bag of
sugar doesn't contain 1024 grams!