Number 195 - August 1999

Hard Drive Size Misleading?
from column by Patrick Marshall, June 6, 1999 Seattle Times
Q. It has always been a puzzle to me why a computer is being advertised as a 6-Gigabyte hard drive when in essence the hard drive has a balance of say, 3 gigabytes left over after the installation of all the software programs. When a monitor is being advertised as 17-inch screen, the ad often notes it has a viewable screen of 15 inches. Why can't a hard drive be something like that, just so you would know what we are actually getting.    A. You're asking the hard drive makers to advertise how much free space will be available on a hard drive after you install your software? The hard drive manufacturers, alas, have no way of knowing how much software you're going to install on your hard drive. Even if all you install is an operating system, the amount of space required varies greatly depending on whether you're installing DOS, Windows 98, Windows NT, or one or another flavor of Unix.     Or are you suggesting that hard drives be sold with the operating system pre-installed? That's an interesting suggestion, but most users would still want the ability to change the operating system without having to buy a new hard drive. TOGGLE Ed. Note:     Think of this as a Real Estate problem. If you bought or rented a house or apartment with a floor area advertised as, say, 1700 square feet, would you complain that it was smaller than that after you moved the furniture in so you could live there? Or that the advertised floor space should be that left unoccupied by furniture after you moved in? Of course not.	Removable computer disks, like floppies, used to be advertised in terms of their Unformatted capacity. After they had been formated their capacity to hold data and/or programs was slightly smaller than the unformatted size because some space had been taken up with DOS instructions or rules about how data would be placed on the disk and a road map, or directory, to be used to store the data and programs and then to find them later. Then as you loaded executable programs and data onto the disk the directory kept track of them and the disk became usable and useful. It really wasn't much use until the programs were placed on it. The same is true of the hard disk. Once they are formatted you move in the "furniture" so you can use it.     With regard to screen size, the manufacturer has some control over that because he adds the case to protect the CRT and its electronics from damage, moisture, etc., and you from electric shock. In doing so he masks the edges of the screen making the viewing area slightly smaller by a known amount, so he knows that dimension.     With regard to preinstallation of the operating system, we don't know of anyone, in recent history, who has not specified, or at least expected that an operating system be installed before the machine is delivered. But which operating system is usually your choice, or failing any instructions to the contrary, a "default" operating system, such as Windows 98, and the computer builder is the one who installs it not the hard drive manufacturer.
Number 195 - August 1999