Question 1

Why does my drive show less space than advertised?

Accepted Answer

Manufacturers use decimal (1 TB = 1000 GB), but OS uses binary (1 TiB = 1024 GiB). A 1TB drive shows ~931 GiB.

Question 2

Which standard is correct?

Accepted Answer

Both are valid. IEC recommends binary prefixes (KiB, MiB) but decimal is common in marketing.

Question 3

Why is my storage smaller than advertised?

Accepted Answer

Manufacturers use decimal (1 GB = 1 billion bytes). Operating systems often use binary (1 GB = 1.07 billion bytes). This ~7% difference explains 'missing' space.

Question 4

What's the difference between bits and bytes?

Accepted Answer

1 byte = 8 bits. Storage is measured in bytes (GB, TB). Network speeds are usually in bits (Mbps, Gbps). Divide Mbps by 8 to get MBps.

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