Why are these USB drives a different capacity?

By Cyber Akuma
in Hardware Hangout

 Share

Recommended Posts

Mentor

Cyber Akuma

Posted
Posted

Ok, so these two drives you see in my screenshot from my PC are the same physical drives shown right below them. They also both have an exact clone of each other's data. They are also both 32GB models and from the same manufacturer, though clearly different models.

 

A39gB1X.jpg

 

Yet, both have a different capacity and amount of space left.

 

Now, if it was just the free space left and the capacity was the same, I would assume they were just formatted with different file cluster sizes. But even the total capacity is different, one has nearly a gig more than the other! What would cause this?

Grand Master

+Random Stranger Subscriber¹

Posted
  • Subscriber¹
Posted

when there are bad sectors, the flash controller will mark these sectors as unusable, so capacity and amount of free space will be decreased. these could very well be the same exact chips, but one has bad sectors.

 

yeah, that what happened to my drive.  capacity went down, otherwise everything normal.

you did not check them against each other when they were new?   

 

or different formatting as people above already mentioned. 29.8 and 29 both would be rounded up to 32GB on the box.

 

also when a manufacturer says 32GB   it is not an exact number.  so could just be different.

Grand Master

BinaryData

Posted
Posted

Honestly, I don't think its possible to get exactly 32GB. I have 50ish 2GB - 32GB drives, not one of them has the full listed amount. Maybe BudMan can give you a specific reason as to why, but even my HDD or my SSD are 5 - 10GB off the stated amount.

Hell, my 1TB drive, NTFS or Linux format, is still missing 31GB of space. Not sure how or why, but it's whatever. I have 2 drives in sequential sequence, both are ~30GB from their true listed amount.

Grand Master

firey

Posted
Posted

Honestly, I don't think its possible to get exactly 32GB. I have 50ish 2GB - 32GB drives, not one of them has the full listed amount. Maybe BudMan can give you a specific reason as to why, but even my HDD or my SSD are 5 - 10GB off the stated amount.

Hell, my 1TB drive, NTFS or Linux format, is still missing 31GB of space. Not sure how or why, but it's whatever. I have 2 drives in sequential sequence, both are ~30GB from their true listed amount.

 

 

It's because human math and computer math are not equal.

Grand Master

+Random Stranger Subscriber¹

Posted
  • Subscriber¹
Posted

My guess is that one company measured the drive space before format and the other company measured after format.  Both companies used the base 10 measurement.

 

he did say it is from the same manufacturer, you know.   :rolleyes: 

 

 

still, could be an issue for different models.

Grand Master

nekrosoft13

Posted
Posted

when there are bad sectors, the flash controller will mark these sectors as unusable, so capacity and amount of free space will be decreased. these could very well be the same exact chips, but one has bad sectors.

yap, and both drives probably have memory chips from different manufactures, capacity can be slightly off.

Mentor

Cyber Akuma

Posted
  • Author
Posted

when there are bad sectors, the flash controller will mark these sectors as unusable, so capacity and amount of free space will be decreased. these could very well be the same exact chips, but one has bad sectors.

The smaller one the right is brand new, I had just gotten it the very day I posted this and the first and only time I ever even plugged it in was what you see here to clone the old drive to the new one, so nearly a gig of bad sectors on a brand new flashdrive is pretty unlikely.

Grand Master

sc302 Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

With the amount of information provided I can properly deduce that the answer to your question is 42.

 

This answer may change once more information is provided, but for now that is the best answer that can be given.  That also answers why grass has to be green but flowers can be multicolored and why tree bark is brown not purple.

 

There is no relevance that just because you have taken it out of the box to it being perfect...there have been drives that have contained bad sectors or that have been doa right out of the box.  It could be a manufacturing defect, it could be different file formats, it could be a number of different things.  It could be because the sun is yellow and you are a salmon colored (which has about as much relevance as you taking it out of the box and plugging it in and assuming everything is good). 

 

A novel idea would be to call the manufacturer and ask them what the issue is, they can correctly inform you as to what is going on...there could be a hidden partition on it (you have not sent us anything that would suggest not, nor have you done anything to help us with more information other than ask the question why.  So please see the first sentence in this post...questions with lack of information lead to speculation.   You will never get an educated, informed, or the correct answer).

Mentor

Cyber Akuma

Posted
  • Author
Posted

My money is on allocation unit size.

Woulden't that affect only the free space/space the files take up though, not the actual capacity?

I guess OP doesn't want to post Disk Management or CHKDSK results for us to determine the exact cause.

I'm not home right now, I'll do it when im home.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Meta launches new AI glasses in 26 styles and Muse Spark multimodal capabilties

      By The Werewolf · Posted

      For me, the fundamental problems with these "smartglasses" is that they really don't work well for people with significant prescriptions and massively up the price if you use attached lenses if they have displays, and if they don't, then they're not actually "smart" anything, rather just connecting to your phone and relaying voice to an AI. In a few cases like this, they throw in small cameras to feed video to the AI. All around, these feel like both a solution looking for a problem, and the problems it tries to solve seem more easily solved by different approaches and designs. Oddly, if the rumours are true, Apple may actually have invented something for once and it kind of does this right: put cameras in ear buds and manage the interface to AI exactly as most of us do: tapping on an ear bud and saying "Hey Google" or "Hey Siri." That makes them compatible with almost everyone, can double up as a hearing assist device, an impaired vision assist device, a "smart" device... and answer your phone and play music. That just seems like a better solution all around.
    • Microsoft outs Windows 11 KB5095093 with long list of new features

      By LiLmEgZ · Posted

      Usually the bigger ones with many fixes/changes take a few, theyre an exception to the rule most likely
    • Valve will finally let you build your own Steam Machine with SteamOS for desktop

      By branfont · Posted

      If you don’t get lucky with Valve’s Steam Machine reservation system, you can make your own Steam Machine instead. Valve says that “starting with the SteamOS 3.8 release, you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want.” SteamOS 3.8.10 launched last week with a slew of updates, including “improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms.” Alongside that improved compatibility, Valve is giving gamers the green light to install SteamOS on their own desktops. In an interview with The Verge, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais said Valve has been “rolling out improvements to [SteamOS] so it’s more compatible with desktop hardware,” including eventual support for Nvidia graphics. Griffais says Valve has “a growing team” working on Nvidia driver support for SteamOS, adding, “We’re collaborating with Nvidia very closely.” While he mentioned that Nvidia support might not come this year, Griffais emphasized that “it’s certainly something that we’re working on in the background.”     Subscription not needed: https://archive.fo/Tssfc Subscription needed: https://www.theverge.com/games/953411/valve-steamos-desktop-nvidia
    • Microsoft outs Windows 11 KB5095093 with long list of new features

      By DaviKar · Posted

      I thought they were supposed to reduce the amount of restarts needed to install these updates? It took 3 restarts to install this update...
    • AI is indeed eliminating jobs, and Oracle just proved it

      By Jdoe25 · Posted

      I know an idiot at work who is "Director for innovation projects" and inevitably has been tasked with following up on this whole trend of "AI and its work applicability". He recently sent out a survey on the topic, for the workforce to disclose their usage and attitudes towards AI. The survey was badly, sloppily typed out, the questions and answers (when multiple choices) were loosely correlated and, all and all, it would already be miserable in the times of MS Office Autocorrect alone. Then, I had AI responding to it all (on the open-ended questions) with beautiful, to-the-point prose after I provided it with minor but proper guidance, taking me under 10 minutes. All this to say that I am sure that if AI comes to replace someone, it will still be me, and the other idiot will still stay.

  • Recent Achievements

    • Dedicated
      HidekoYamamoto94 earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • One Month Later
      timbobit earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      nates earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Almohandis earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Rookie
      dorf went up a rank
      Rookie

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      454
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      162
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      107
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      84
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      70
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!