The difference between advertised and reported drive capacities is easy to explain.
The Most Common Reason: Different Counting Methods!
Drive manufacturers use a different way of calculating storage capacity than some operating systems.
Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek
In the binary system, there are 1024 bytes in a binary kilobyte.
As a result, 1 GB may be slightly less than 1 GB when displayed in Windows.
When displayed on a Windows computer, this would be rounded down to a value slightly less than 1GB.
Incidentally, the terms kibibyte, mebibyte, and gibibyte, are used to specifically denote binary units.
However, any pre-built computer or laptop will likely have more than just the operating system installed.
However drive sizes are reported, the actual number of bits you get doesn’t change.
It’s only how they are grouped into larger units that’s different.
It’s your rig, after all—you’re free to make the rules!
