HDD partitions question

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pusur44017

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Feb 14, 2015
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I have an Acer pre-built computer (Yes I know, but it's so much cheaper than building one in my country) There is a caviar green WD 2TB drive in there that was pre-partitioned into C and D. Now, each of these partitions only have 915 GB each, to thats a loss of 170 GB. Is this normal? If not, how can I find that space and use it?

-pusur
 
Solution
ronintexas
This is normal - remember MB/GB/TB in actual bytes is how they define the "2TB" (all HDD manufacturers use this). In reality, 1MB = 1024 bytes, 1GB = 1024 MB, 1TB = 1024 GB. So, 1024 X 1024 X 1024 X 2 = 2,147,483,648 bytes. The HDD manufacturer is selling you 2,000,000,000 bytes on the hard drive - so the actual size of the drive is 1.907TB.

Also - there are hidden partitions on that drive - a recovery partition, a system partition, and possibly others that will further reduce the volume on the drive.
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ronintexas

ronintexas

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This is normal - remember MB/GB/TB in actual bytes is how they define the "2TB" (all HDD manufacturers use this). In reality, 1MB = 1024 bytes, 1GB = 1024 MB, 1TB = 1024 GB. So, 1024 X 1024 X 1024 X 2 = 2,147,483,648 bytes. The HDD manufacturer is selling you 2,000,000,000 bytes on the hard drive - so the actual size of the drive is 1.907TB.

Also - there are hidden partitions on that drive - a recovery partition, a system partition, and possibly others that will further reduce the volume on the drive.
 
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thx1138v2

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Jun 18, 2011
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You probably can't get that space back. Nor do you want to. There are a lot of reasons that the useable space doesn't add up to the advertised space.

I see you are adding the two partition sizes and subtracting from 2000 to get the 170GB number. If you look in Windows Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Storage->Disk Manager you will probably see a "System Reserved" partition. That is used by Windows and either that partition or another hidden partition holds a copy of the Windows install image. That install image was put there by Acer and is used to recover your Windows setup if it gets corrupted.

For more info on why the useable space doesn't add up to the advertised space see the following link
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/12/dont-pcs-just-tell-us-much-hard-drive-space/
 
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pusur44017

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Right, thanks I knew there was hidden partitions, but not 170 GBs worth... When you take the actual size of a GB into it, stuff begins to become more normal. There is so much Acer crap settings and programs, I was just wondering if they put in some limitations to up their business.
 
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ronintexas

ronintexas

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In some "big box store prebuilt computers", I have observed a partition up to 10% of the size of the drive that has the original software installed - this is so you can make "restore DVDs". Once you make the DVDs, there is an option to remove the partitions and reallocate the space to storage. I usually get the product key(s) for the software I want to keep, wipe the drive and install only what I need. Some of the bloat ware, backups, etc., are just a waste of space.

I ALWAYS CREATE THE DVDs first....once your format the drives....those partitions are gone.....
 
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