How to determine the capacity of a hard drive. How to find out what hard drive is on the computer? How to find out the real size of a hard drive using programs

I welcome all guests of the site site, today we will talk about what the real capacity, size and volume of the hard drive actually is. Have you ever wondered where the difference in the size of hard drives comes from - between the value indicated by the manufacturer and the data in the operating system? This is not a mistake of either party, but only a difference in the settlement system.

You may have noticed that after purchasing a 750 GB drive (as indicated on the label) and connecting it to your computer, the system showed only less than 700 GB of storage. It's not a scam, but a system of measurement.

In fact, everything is not so simple. If we buy a drive for several hundred gigabytes, then the loss of a couple of tens of GB of space is not so noticeable. It’s a completely different matter if you need to download data of a fixed size (4-8 GB), in which case a loss of even 100 KB can become a significant problem.

Currently, the capacity of hard drives, SSDs, memory cards, or flash drives is most commonly reported in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB). For example, when buying a 500 GB solid state drive, theoretically, we should have just that much data available. After starting the computer, however, it turns out that the total size of the hard drive is 465 GB. Why such a big difference? It all comes down to the method of calculation. Every day we use the decimal system, where the base is the number 10. The computer uses the binary system, where, as the name suggests, the base is the number 2, and two values ​​\u200b\u200bare enough to write numbers - 0 and 1.

Since the computer uses a binary system, the manufacturer's claim is actually less. The explanation for this issue is very simple. For calculations, we will take a drive with a capacity of 500 GB.

The basic unit of computer memory is the byte. In accordance with the SI system, prefixes sequentially look like: kilo (K) - for a thousand, mega (M) - a million, giga (G) for a billion and tera (T) for a trillion. So, we have, respectively, a kilobyte (1000 bytes), a megabyte (million bytes), a gigabyte (billion bytes) and a terabyte (trillion bytes). In theory, a 500 GB hard drive should have a capacity of 500,000,000,000 bytes (500 bytes x 1000 x 1000 kilobytes megabytes x 1000 gigabytes).

The computer calculates, however, the values ​​in a slightly different way. Here 1 kilobyte is not equal to 1000 bytes, only 1024 bytes. A megabyte has 1048576 bytes (1024 x 1024) and a gigabyte has 1073731824 bytes (1024 x 1024 x 1024).

Equating, therefore, 500 GB, calculating the capacity of such a hard disk, according to the decimal system to binary, we get a value of 465.66 GB. We split 500,000,000,000 bytes (500 GB) three times into 1024, not 1000. The action looks like this: 500,000,000,000 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = 456.66 GB.

There are also other reasons why hard drives are smaller than the above calculations suggest. So, laptop manufacturers use so-called additional, hidden disk partitions, thanks to which it is possible to restore the operating system to the state after purchase - in the event of, for example, damage caused by viruses. The total capacity for the hard drive is then reduced by, for example, 10 GB, which was reserved for the copy of the system, along with the drivers and necessary software. Capacity can also be limited by partitions created, write buffer area, or bad sectors.

How to calculate the real capacity of a hard drive

As we remember from computer science lessons, all computers work in a binary (binary) number system. All data is stored in the format of ones and zeros. The minimum unit of information is one bit, eight bits make up one byte. What follows is the following math:

• 1 kB (kilobyte) = 1024 B (byte)
• 1 MB (megabyte) = 1024 kB (kilobyte) = 1048576 B (byte)
• 1 GB (gigabyte) = 1 024 MB (megabyte) = 1 073 741 824 B (bytes)
• 1 TB (terabyte) = 1,024 GB (gigabyte) = 1,099,511,627,776 B (bytes)

While a computer works in binary, a person usually thinks in decimal. If we look at the SI units, we see that the prefixes used to measure memory get a different value:

• kilo = 10^3 = 1000 (thousand)
• mega = 10^6 = 1,000,000 (million)
• giga = 10^9 = 1,000,000,000 (billion)
• tera = 10^12 = 1,000,000,000,000 (trillion)

In the same way that the manufacturer of the hard disk thinks like a person - for example, 5 GB, according to this system, the real capacity of the hard disk will be 5,000 MB.

And here we are at the core of the problem. On the box of the drive, you see the inscription 1,000 GB, but after connecting to a computer, it will show the actual size of the hard drive is only 931.32 GB. The difference was obtained not by deceit, but by using other calculation systems - binary on the computer side and decimal on the human (manufacturer) side.

Given all of the above, you can easily find out the real size of your computer hard drive. So, 1000 GB is 1 TB, which in human terms contains 1 trillion bytes. The computer, on the other hand, uses machine arithmetic, and divides everything by 1024, as a result:

• 1,000,000,000,000 bytes / 1024 = 976,562,500 kilobytes
• 976,562,500 kilobytes / 1024 = 953,674.316 megabytes
• 953,674.316 megabytes / 1024 = 931.322 gigabytes

As in the rest of the world, even in displaying the actual capacity of computer hard drives, there are exceptions - some computer and operating systems work differently; the average user, however, almost always encounters the above problem.

To be clear, here is a table for a quick overview of the reported and actual capacity of a computer's hard drive:

Now let's move on to the next part of the article, which will allow us to understand in more detail not only the real capacity of the computer's drive, but also other aspects of the measurement.

Real computer hard drive capacity and internet speed

This topic is great for discussion on long autumn evenings, and, as a rule, is shrouded in a lot of controversy and hypotheses. Arguing, basically, can not come to a single input. It all starts with the fact that the size of memory or the real capacity (size, volume) of a computer hard disk in the world is calculated in bytes. Which is pretty simple, a byte is a pretty simple thing (in English byte). One byte contains eight bits (bit, the main block of information that can take on the value 1 or 0) and there is nothing complicated about it. It just gets a little more complicated from there.

• Memory is more than a few bytes, so the kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes (and a few more I can't remember) come into play. And here the problems of the real capacity of the size of a computer hard drive begin.
• The classic (original) kilobyte contains 1,024 bytes. Yes, not a thousand, but a thousand twenty-four. This is because everything in computers is, so to speak, binary, not decimal. And so there are 1,024.

But... for some hard drive manufacturers, it was more practical to specify another kilobyte, one that would contain 1,000 bytes. Maybe, but this is certainly a bad idea as it will allow manufacturers to deceive the customer about the actual capacity of the computer's hard drive size. And the difference will be significant, given that measurements are in megabytes, kilobytes and even terabytes. But, manipulations exist, and it is important to look at the real state of affairs.

However, the catch regarding the actual volume and size of a computer hard drive can be determined by marking. Let's look at the following example, which uses capacity markings for decimal and binary:

• b, bit (bit, binary digit) = basic unit of information.
• Byte, B (B) - 8 bits.
• Kilobyte, kB (KB) - 1000 bytes (10^3)
• Kibibyte, KiB (KiB) - 1024 bytes (2^10)
• Megabyte, MB (MB) - 1,000,000 bytes (10^6)
• Mebibyte, MiB (MiB) - 1,045,576 bytes (2^20)
• Gigabyte, GB (GB) - 1,000,000,000 bytes (10^9)
• Gibibyte, GiB (GiB) - 1,073,741,8224 bytes (2^30)

Attention, kb is a kilobit, kB is a kilobyte

Similar fallbacks apply to kbps = kilobits per second (Internet data transfer rate) versus kBps = kilobytes per second (possibly Kibps and KiBps). And this is quite a significant difference, since the classic Ethernet Internet has a speed of 10 Mbps (Mbps) = 10 million bits per second, or 1,250,000 Bps or bytes per second.

It may even be good to know that computer memory today is calculated in gigabytes, the real capacity of computer hard drives is from hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes. Memory cards in phones (tablets) - in tens of gigabytes. Phones themselves tend to have a gigabyte of RAM - and in general, the more the better.

How to find out the real size of a hard drive using programs?

The fact that the operating system always shows the volume of the hard drive is less than indicated on the package (this also applies to memory cards and flash drives), I have already gotten used to. But here, I decided to test a few AIDA64 and CrystalDiskInfo programs, which I reviewed in the article, to see what they show. For understanding, the sticker from the manufacturer on my laptop says that I have a 250GB hard drive, exactly 250, not a byte more, not a byte less.

First of all, I decided to use my favorite program AIDA64. If you run the program, then in the main window on the left there will be an extensive list that allows you to get detailed information on the system and equipment. To view the actual capacity and dimensions of the hard drive, and not its labeling, you can look at one of two items:

• Data storage/Physical drives- in the right area at the top, the name of the drive will be displayed, and its size, which is 232GB. As we understand, the manufacturer hammed 17 GB.
• Computer/Summary Information- in the long list on the right, you need to find the item Partitions / Total volume, according to the program, the size of my hard disk is 232.9 GB. Apparently, in the last tab, AIDA64 cuts off the decimal value.

Okay, let's try to use the program CrystalDiskInfo, given the name, this tool should also show the actual size of the hard drive. In the main window of the program, the marking of the drive was displayed, and ... 250GB. Which is pretty annoying.

Remember, to view the actual dimensions of a hard drive in Windows, simply right-click on the drive, and select the Properties tab. If the disk was divided into sections, then we look at the properties for each section, and then summarize. Although there may also be a catch here, since when creating partitions, some disk space may be wasted, but this value is not too large.

Instruction

Information about the size of the hard drive is available in the BIOS, and you can get it even if there is no operating system installed and it is impossible to open the case of the system unit. Turn on the power and press the DEL key (less commonly, these are the F1, F2, F10 keys). The BIOS Setup main menu will be displayed. Depending on the BIOS version, the name of the option that determines the parameters of the drive varies. Its name may be IDE HDD Auto-Detection, IDE configuration. Select the disk of interest in the list of all installed disks and click on the Enter key. A window with HDD characteristics will open, where the size of the disk is indicated. To convert the disk size to, divide the number of megabytes by 1024.

Using the Windows operating system, you can get disk characteristics from the Computer Management console. Right-click on "My Computer" and select "Manage". In the left window, go to the Disk Management snap-in. Launch the Properties command by right-clicking on the graphical representation of the drive labeled "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc., depending on which drives you have installed. In the Properties dialog box, click the Volumes tab. This will list the size of the disk and the size of the volumes it has.

You can use third-party utilities to determine the disk size. One such utility is HDD Life Pro. It is easy to find it on the Internet. The shareware program is quite enough to determine the size of your hard drive. Download the program, install it on your computer and run it for execution. The window that opens will display detailed information about all the parameters of the disk, including its volume, which will be indicated under the name of the disk in the upper part of the window.

Sources:

• how to find out what hard drive i have

The hard drive, or hard drive, is the main storage device in the system unit. From its characteristics to a large extent depends on the speed of the computer and the safety of data.

Instruction

You can determine the type and characteristics of the hard drive by external inspection. The sticker at the top shows the model and manufacturer of the equipment, as well as the number of heads and cylinders.

If the hard drive is already installed in the system unit, and you do not want to remove it from there, try getting information from the BIOS. Restart your computer and press the Pause/Break key when information about your computer's devices appears on the screen. Use Enter to continue output. Press these keys alternately until the turn comes to the hard disk.

There is another way. After the initial boot, wait for the prompt to appear on the screen, something like this: “Press Delete to setup”. Instead of Delete, the BIOS developer can specify another key, usually one of the function keys. Press this key to enter the BIOS setup menu. Find information about IDE, SCSI or SATA devices in the menu items, depending on which interface is used in your system unit.

You can get information about the hard drive using Windows tools. Call the program launch line with the Win + R hotkeys or select the "Run" option from the "Start" menu. Enter the msconfig command. In the system settings window, go to the "Service" tab, find the "System Information" item and click the "Run" button. In the System Information list, expand the Storage Devices node and click Disks.

If the physical disk is divided into logical volumes, then you will see two "Disks" items. One will contain information about logical drives, the other - about physical devices, i.e. full description of their properties: serial number, cluster size, number of cylinders, sectors, tracks and logical partitions.

You can determine the characteristics of devices, including the hard drive, using third-party programs. One of them - PC Wizard - is available for free download on the developer's website. Download and install the program. After starting, click on the "Iron" button and in the "Element" list, click on the "Disk" icon.

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Tip 3: How to Diagnose a Failed Hard Drive

To successfully repair or recover data from a hard drive, it is necessary to diagnose it correctly. Diagnostics at the "Inter" Laboratory is free and will take a few minutes. However, so that its result does not disappoint you, you can try to diagnose the disk yourself.

You will need

• A computer with a known good power supply, working cables for connecting the drive, and most importantly - hearing!

Instruction

We connect the disk to the standard computer interface (IDE, SATA, USB) and the power supply. We turn on the computer.

Regardless of whether the computer boots or not, we listen to what happens to the disk. A normal disk should spin up, crackle a little (!) (heads are being recalibrated) and continue spinning. If instead of the sound of rotation of the plates we hear a squeak, then we have either a sticking of the magnetic heads or an engine wedge (depending on the model). If, after unwinding the plates, we hear distinct blows, or multiple repeated clicks, the block of magnetic heads is faulty. The disk cannot be repaired in case of both failures, data recovery is possible only in a specialized laboratory.

If there are no extraneous sounds, we check if the disk is detected in the BIOS. If not, the service information of the disk is most likely damaged (it can also be conditionally called firmware). Repair is questionable, data recovery is within the power of data recovery laboratory specialists using special equipment.

If the disk is detected in the BIOS, we check its presence in the disk manager: right-click on "my computer" -> management -> disk manager. Information about a normal disk: volume, file system, letter. If we see messages like "RAW file system", "disk not initialized", etc., we are dealing with a damaged logical structure of the disk (file system corruption). For successful data recovery, you should check the disk for unreadable sectors, their number (as they may be due to a head failure) and location. If there are no unreadable sectors, you can recover data programmatically (this, of course, is best left to professionals). If we have surface damage, then a special hardware-software complex is required to read such a disk.

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note

Never open the hard drive. Opening a hard drive should only be done under special conditions ("clean room", laminar flow hood) and by personnel with sufficient training. Inside the hard drive is very fine mechanics and VERY clean air. Ingress of any dust particles, accidental contact with disc surfaces, heads, etc. may result in the complete loss of all important data.

Helpful advice

When diagnosing, use only known good equipment (power supply, cables, etc.). If you decide to recover data yourself, evaluate your strength and the cost of a mistake.

Sources:

• Data Recovery Lab

Tip 4: How to check the health of your hard drive in Windows

For each user, sooner or later, the question arises of maintaining one important component, where most of the computer's information is permanently stored. Of course, we are talking about a hard drive, the state of which is desirable to constantly monitor in order to avoid data loss. Special utilities will help us cope with this task.

You will need

• - Internet;
• - HDTune software.

Instruction

Choose a utility. Many programs, both domestic and foreign, have been developed for Microsoft Windows operating systems, allowing you to view information about the current state of the hard drive, test its performance, identify errors in operation, and evaluate its performance. One of the popular utilities is HDTune, distributed in two versions - paid and free (with limited functionality). The free version is enough to perform basic hard disk maintenance functions.

Download and install. You can download the HDTune utility from the official website. Once downloaded, run the installer and follow its instructions. Upon completion of the installation, you will be prompted to launch the program. In the future, it can be launched using a shortcut on the desktop or from the "Start" menu, "Programs" section.

Check temperature. The current temperature of the hard drive can be seen at the top of the main program window. If you have several disks installed on your computer, open the drop-down menu at the top of the main window and select the one you need. Please note that the temperature of the disk should not exceed 45 degrees (Celsius), otherwise the risk of its rapid failure increases many times over.

The main parameters of any hard drive include the form factor (2.5 for a laptop, 3.5 for a desktop PC), volume, connection interface (Sata 1, Sata 2, Sata 3, and so on), spindle speed, buffer size.

In order to find out which hard drive is installed in your computer or laptop, there are many methods. In this article we will talk about the simplest and most affordable of them. There will be a way without installing additional programs and using the Aida64 program.

The way to find out what hard drive is on the computer # 1 - Through computer management

So, to determine the model of the hard drive, we need to go to computer management.

To do this, right-click on the "Computer" icon on the desktop or in the start menu and select "Management" ("Computer Management").

Entering Computer Management

In the upper left corner, open the item "Storage devices" -\u003e "Disk Management".

Open "Storage Devices" -> "Disk Management"

In the right part of the window, you will see all hard drives and CD drives installed in the computer.

By volume, select the hard drive whose parameters we want to know, right-click on it and select "Properties" in the menu that opens.

The hard disk properties window will open, where its model will be written on the General tab.

We find in the properties the model of the hard disk installed in the computer

Now, to find out all the main parameters, you need to enter this model into any search engine and look on the Internet for the parameters you are interested in.

Looking for a model on the Internet

We look at the full description of all the characteristics of the hard drive

Aida64 program - A way to find out which hard drive is on computer # 2

Download and install the Aida64 program from the official website. The program has a 30-day trial period. Therefore, you can easily use the trial version.

The hard drive is one of the main components of a computer. After all, it is it that is used to store most of the data, both user and system. In this article, we will talk about how to find out which hard drive is on your computer and what characteristics it has.

Method number 1. Disk properties.

The easiest way to find out which hard drive is on your computer is to use the built-in tools in the Windows operating system. To do this, open the "" window, right-click on any hard drive and select the "Properties" menu item.

After that, the "Disk Properties" window will open in front of you. Here, on the "Hardware" tab, there is a list of all drives connected to the computer.

Among other things, this list includes hard drives. The only negative is the names of hard drives are presented in abbreviated form.

To get more information about a hard drive, simply enter its abbreviated name into any search engine. And you can easily find a page describing all its characteristics.

Method number 2. HDDlife Professional program.

If you not only want to find out what hard drive is on your computer, but also get all the possible information about it, then you can use the HDDlife Professional program for this. This program is paid, but the Trial version is enough to view information about one hard drive.

As you can see in the screenshot above, HDDlife provides information about the hard drive model, hard drive manufacturer, hard drive health, temperature, and logical drives.

The HDDlife Professional program can be downloaded. There you can also download HDDlife for Notebooks (Notebook version) and SSD Life Professional (SSD version).

Method number 3. CrystalDiskInfo program.

CrystalDiskInfo - can be considered a free alternative to HDDlife Professional. The CrystalDiskInfo program displays information about all the hard drives that are on the computer. At the same time, for each hard drive, the model name, firmware version, serial number, interface used, volume letter, rotation speed, number of starts, total operating time, temperature, S.M.A.R.T. data, and other information are displayed.

For SSD drives, CrystalDiskInfo may display some additional information. For example, the amount of read and written data for the entire period of operation of the drive. You can download the program

There are few cases when you need to find out the model of your hard drive. Most often, a similar question is asked when the hard drive ordered to live for a long time - errors appear during operation, or the OS does not boot at all due to a non-working disk. It happens that you need to determine your HDD in order to replace it with a more capacious one, or this information is simply interesting for you.

In any case, problems with a hard drive are among those that are fixed in workshops, since home computer repair is only advisable when the problem can be fixed quickly and efficiently. Diagnosis of HDD malfunctions takes a long time, which means that you can quickly only replace the problematic disk with a new one.

The most primitive way to find out your hard drive is to get it out of the system unit or laptop case. To do this, turn off the power (remove the laptop battery), unscrew the system unit (or the bottom cover on the bottom of the laptop) and take out our HDD, on which all the information of interest will be visible - manufacturer, volume, speed, country of production and other parameters.

If you have no desire to disassemble a laptop or unwind the system unit, then we can find out all the information of interest using the program method.

How to find out the real size of the hard drive

For a better understanding, manufacturers and sellers indicate the traditional volume of disks: 40, 60, 120, 160, 320, 500, 640 GB, and so on. However, in reality, it is always less than stated, because:
1 GB = 1024 MB
1 MB = 1024 KB
1 KB = 1024 bytes

and manufacturers round up to 1000 when calculating. Below is a table of correspondence between the marking volume of the HDD and the real one.

To verify this, right-click on the shortcut My computer and select Control. In the utility that opens, go to the tab storage devices - Disk Management

In our case, the utility shows 465.65 GB, which corresponds to a label of 500 GB.

How to find out the hard drive model

As in the previous method, right-click on the shortcut My computer and select Control. In the computer management utility that opens, click the tab device Manager. Expand here Disk devices and you will see the hard drives installed on your computer.

In our case, there are two of them - Hitachi HTS545050A7E380 and SanDisk SSD i100 24 GB. The first is a traditional HDD, the second is a solid state SSD drive.

How to find out all the information about your hard drive

To the program AIDA64 we have already asked for help when we were looking for , etc. This utility will help us this time as well.

You can get acquainted with the AIDA64 program and download it for free from our website.

Run AIDU on your computer and go through the tabs Storage - ATA. At the top of the window, select the desired hard drive, if there are several, and the program will show all the information about the hard drive. The report is divided into parts, the information we need is titled as ATA device properties And Device physical data.

As you can see, everything is elementary and absolutely simple, if you know what tools to use to search for information.