Re: GB vs. MB

Albert Cahalan (albert@ccs.neu.edu)
Wed, 27 Nov 1996 01:17:29 -0500 (EST)

>>> I like the disk size message in sd.c but since
>> 1MB == 1024*1024 == 2^20,
>>
>> It isn't as simple as that.
>>
>> 1MB of RAM is, indeed, equal to 1024*1024 bytes.
>> But 1.44MB floppy has 1.44*1000*1024 bytes.
>> With hard disks, your mileage may vary.
>
> I don't know of too many SCSI floppy drives though... :-)

The Zip drive counts I think. It is 93 to 100 MB, depending
on what a MB is and which bytes you include in your count.

> I think that linux should report what's true, not what the
> marketers shove down our throats. A megabyte is 2^20, it
> should be reported as such.

People expect a disk MB to be 10^6 now, so maybe Linux should
do what people expect. With 2^20, it looks like Linux makes
disks get smaller.

I think we should just be glad that hard disk manufacturers
don't throw in a factor of 4 for compression -- not yet anyway.