[sf-lug] Drive sizes/capacities: Re: Want a large Flash Drive or a good sized SSD?

[Tony Godshall]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 1:46 PM Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
>
> Quoting aaronco36 (aaronco36 at SDF.ORG):
>
> > FWIW, at least according to reference [2], there is a fairly _clear_
> > difference between GigAbytes (GB) and GigIbytes (GiB), as IMHO
> > Michael P nicely expanded upon in reference [3].

two comments:

1.
gigibytes is not a thing.  gigabytes and gibibytes are the terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

Bi for binary.  kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi...  reminds you that we are
being specific about 2^, not 10^

2.
The difference between traditional power-of-two mega/giga/terabytes,
now called mebi/gibi/tebibytes, and the power-of-10 "marketing"
mega/giga/terabytes is the difference between 2^20 and 10^6, between
2^30 and 10^9, and between 2^40 and 10^12, respectively, which is
easily calculated (spreadsheet attached) as a yield of 95.4% , 93.1%,
and 90.9% of the space promised by the marketing label being
available, even before partitioning and filesystem overhead.  So yeah,
the idea that marketing lies is further reinforced.


> A difference that is almost univesally ignored except where for some
> reason it's necessary to be achingly precise.  (Even then, personally
> I'd always add a terse footnote rather than adopt an ugly neologism like
> 'GiB'.)
>
> Generally speaking, one can pretty easily tell what is intended from
> context, anyway.  (Deriving meaning from context is what the world at
> large does, even though Aspies aren't with the program.)  E.g., sales
> materials will almost always use the more-impressive number.

Amen to that.


-- 
--
Best Regards.
This is unedited.
This message came out of me
via a suboptimal keyboard.
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