Now, there is something that absolutely drives me up the wall. Why is it that hard drive companies, flash memory makers, memory producers, and software makers all use different figures?! Especially with computers' rapidly expanding global presence, it makes no sense to have several different standards for storage. I personally don't care what we decide on, but everyone should use the same one. To give you an idea, check out the figures on the NIST unit standards page. You will notice that gibibytes are what Windows uses to calculate disk size, while disk manufacturers use gigabytes to inflate the apparent capacity. Can't really say either party is wrong, but why, why can't we agree on one set!? The problems compounds itself as capacities continue to grow. For example:


The difference between those two numbers is about five percent. However, when we compare larger capacities:


These numbers, although large, highlight the problem perfectly, and storage is rapidly expanding. The difference between the latter numbers is almost ten percent! Unless something is done to make a standardized unit, it will only get worse.

the_doc