Re: fdisk units size & disk manufacturers buying the standard

[Phillip Susi <psusi@ubuntu.com>]

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On 12/8/2014 4:35 PM, Linda Walsh wrote:
> They may a fundamental error that any engineer or mathematician 
> could point out:
> 
> 'B' == a prefix meaning 2^3bits.  I.e 'B' is a base-2 measurement. 
> In science and engineering, you just don't mix units like that 
> unless want to prove you don't know what you are talking about.

While I do despise the HD industry for lieing about drive sizes, I
have to point out your error here.  How the unit the prefix is applied
to relates to some other unit has no bearing whatsoever on the prefix
itself.  Your argument is like saying that a kilowatt-hour should be
only 60 watt-hours instead of 1,000 because a watt-hour is 3600
joules, which is base 60 instead of base 10.

> Also, disk manufacturers are lying.  Disk space is allocated in
> 2^9 (512 Bytes or 2^12 bits) or 2^12 Bytes (2^15 bits).   They 
> ***CANNOT*** accurate quote disk space using base 10.  I.e. 1MB = 
> 2048 sectors.  But 1MBd = 1954.125 sectors -- and you cannot use 
> 1/8th of a sector.  So ANY figure they give will be a lie as 10 
> doesn't divide into a power of 2 which is how computer space is 
> allocated and used.

Rounding is not the same thing as lieing.  If they were claiming that
a disk that has 1,000,000,000 sectors was 477 GB, you couldn't really
fault them for the missing ~166 MB.


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