DVD Media Question
- Thread starter t0rek
- Start date
This is one of the oldest questions in computer history...
The answer lies in the floppy disket... Yes the floppy disket is one of the reasons people asked this question... So here's the answer... Any medium used by a computer needs to be formatted in order for that computer's OS to read that medium... So in the case of the DVD... The unformatted medium, which is not readable by any computer's OS is at full unused capacity of 4.7 GB a single Density DVD... Double Density is 9.2 GB... So when the DVD is formatted for the computer OS to read, that format information takes up space and thus you have what is left over to use... The remaining 4.38 GB... This is true on all medium used by a computer...
The answer lies in the floppy disket... Yes the floppy disket is one of the reasons people asked this question... So here's the answer... Any medium used by a computer needs to be formatted in order for that computer's OS to read that medium... So in the case of the DVD... The unformatted medium, which is not readable by any computer's OS is at full unused capacity of 4.7 GB a single Density DVD... Double Density is 9.2 GB... So when the DVD is formatted for the computer OS to read, that format information takes up space and thus you have what is left over to use... The remaining 4.38 GB... This is true on all medium used by a computer...
ScottJC
At your service, dood!
Maybe because they are stupid? I wondered why this was the case as well, maybe there is an overhead... but its not totally uncommon just to dvd-r's, hard drives suffer this as well because they claim to be 80gb for instance and i end up only being able to see 75gb of it.. or something.
JinXD
Member
Quick check on google for anyone who doesn't understand the difference:
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0881986.html
OR
http://www.riverland.net.au/text/look_first/gloss2.html
edit: Nah I was right first time:
1gb = 1024^3 = 1073741824b OR 1gb = 1000000000b
therefore
1073741824/1000000000 = 1.073741824 AND 4.7/4.38 = 1.073059361
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0881986.html
OR
http://www.riverland.net.au/text/look_first/gloss2.html
edit: Nah I was right first time:
1gb = 1024^3 = 1073741824b OR 1gb = 1000000000b
therefore
1073741824/1000000000 = 1.073741824 AND 4.7/4.38 = 1.073059361
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zAlbee
Keeper of The Iron Tail
yes, jinXD is right, zman is not.
hard drive manufacturers sell you 1,000,000,000 bytes instead of the real 1 gigabyte (1024^3). looks like DVD R does the same. just take 4,700,000,000 and divide by 1024 three times... you'll get 4.38 GB. floppy is the same 1,440,000 = 1.37 MB. CDs seem to be the exception... you get a nice and real 702 MB.
hard drive manufacturers sell you 1,000,000,000 bytes instead of the real 1 gigabyte (1024^3). looks like DVD R does the same. just take 4,700,000,000 and divide by 1024 three times... you'll get 4.38 GB. floppy is the same 1,440,000 = 1.37 MB. CDs seem to be the exception... you get a nice and real 702 MB.
ScottJC said:
Thats different. 1st, Windows doesn't use all of a hard drive, it leaves part of it unpartitioned. Second a file system takes up disk space, small as it may be, it uses some. Third, cutting the silicone disks for a hard drive isn't an exact science, you cut it close to what you think it will be and then call it that, sometimes its more, sometimes its less. my 250GB hard drive has 258GB of unpartitioned space.
MasterPhW
Master of the Emulation Flame
What for a CD burner do you have? 4500 GB on one DVD? OMG! *lol*-Shadow- said:That's strange, because can burn around 4500 GB on a DVD media without problemslain:
A 700 MB CD means 700 MB, a 1GB CD/DVD would mean 1024 MB and a 4,7 GB DVD would mean 4812,8 MB...
Ups, now I'm confused!
Stezo2k said:
No, he was right. There is 1024 MB in a gigabyte. If you have 4.7 gigabytes the calculation would be more like this
1024 * 4.7 = 4812.8MB
or if you want to break it down
1024 + 1024 + 1024 + 1024 + (0.7 * 1024)
4096 + 716.8
4812.8
I'm not sure what calculation you were doing.
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