torstai 15. tammikuuta 2009

Windows uses words "kilobyte", "megabyte", "gigabyte", and "terabyte" incorrectly

In the following picture you can see my 320 gigabyte (GB) HDD with two partitions. According to Windows, its capacity is only 278,10 GB + 19,99 GB = 298,09 GB! In reality this "298,09 GB" is 298,09 GiB (gibibyte), which really is about 320 gigabytes. Confusing? Yes!















Windows Explorer should speak about kibibytes, mebibytes, gibibytes, and tebibytes instead of kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes or it still could speak about kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes, if it shows the numbers correctly. Make this a user-changeable setting. There could be four different modes:
1. legacy mode: This mode uses the words kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, and terabyte INCORRECTLY like today.
2. binary mode: This mode uses the words kibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte, and tebibyte CORRECTLY.
3. decimal mode: This mode uses the words kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, and terabyte CORRECTLY.
4. binary&decimal mode: This mode shows (CORRECTLY) both presentations at once. For example: "3 objects selected, size: 2.23 kibibytes, 2.28352 kilobytes".
The default mode should be 2, 3 or 4, not 1.
Lähettänyt klo

8 kommenttia:

  1. jakeri21. tammikuuta 2009 klo 22.31

    That's not problem with the windows, that's problem with marketing sections of hdd manufacturers because true gigabyte is 1024 mb and hdd manufacturers sell 1000mb as a gigabyte and megabyte that is 1024 kb is allso marketed as 1000. So "750gb" hdd is really 715.2gb hdd.

    VastaaPoista
  2. Kokopäiväinen skeptikko21. tammikuuta 2009 klo 22.52

    Actually, HDD manufacturers are right. Their gigabyte is the real gigabyte. Giga = 10^9. Gibi = 2^{30}.

    VastaaPoista
  3. Falcon22. maaliskuuta 2009 klo 15.42

    NO friggin' way. Hard drive manufacturers screwed up the standard and made some dedicated group of "individuals" (obsessive-compulsive loudmouths) come up with a childish term like "gibibyte".

    There is no way I'm going to start referring to data like I've got too much downs-syndrome-induced drool in my mouth (mibibyte lurrrr), and I don't want my Windows referring to data in such a way either. Yuck.

    As long as Windows calculates 1kb=1024b, 1mb=1024kb, 1gb=1024mb, 1tb=1024gb, etc..., then I'm happy.

    VastaaPoista
  4. Kokopäiväinen skeptikko22. maaliskuuta 2009 klo 23.09

    People should get used to it. If you read my whole suggestions, you can find a LEGACY mode there, so if it really is that hard to abandon the misleading byte system, you could turn it on...

    VastaaPoista
  5. Hugi28. kesäkuuta 2009 klo 10.37

    Apple does this correctly in Snow Leopard (next release of Mac OS X), switching to base-10.

    http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/06/15/snow-leopard-apple-switched-to-base-10-counting

    VastaaPoista
  6. Kokopäiväinen skeptikko28. kesäkuuta 2009 klo 12.09

    Hugi: Great info. Thanks!

    VastaaPoista
  7. Hmm5. lokakuuta 2009 klo 10.15

    I'd rather see them use "kB" and "MB" and define them as 1,000 and 1,000,000, respectively.

    What's the purpose of dividing by 1024 when showing numbers to the user? Dividing by 1000 makes calculations easier, and files don't naturally come in multiples of 1024 like memory does. Mac OS X decided this is the right way to go, too.

    VastaaPoista
  8. Kokopäiväinen skeptikko5. lokakuuta 2009 klo 23.52

    Hmm: Thanks for you reply!

    Yes, one (correct) way is to use the following:
    kilo = 1,000
    mega = 1,000,000

    The other (correct) way is to use the following:
    kibi = 1,024
    mebi = 1,048,576

    I think it would be best to let the user choose.

    VastaaPoista

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