6 ms·

I personally prefer base 2 units for file size. A 2GB file will take 2GB of memory when I load it in. Hard drive page sizes are also base two, 512 bytes for m

by Avernar 11y ago

I personally prefer base 2 units for file size. A 2GB file will take 2GB of memory when I load it in. Hard drive page sizes are also base two, 512 bytes for most drives and 4096 bytes (4K) for newer large capacity drives. I also prefer base 2 for file transfer speeds just so it matches the file size convention. Fortunately most programs either default to base 2 or let you chose in the preferences. Network line speeds are in base 10 (100Mbit ethernet is actually 100,000,000 bits/s) but there so much protocol overhead and other factors that comparing transfer speeds and line speeds is moot in most situations.

brucedawson 11y ago
You may be the first commenter who has actually given a reason for preferring base 2 units for file sizes. I'm not sure it justifies exposing base-2 sizes to non-geek consumers, but it is a valid reason.
- mehrdada 11y ago
  I'm not sure why "non-geek customers" should care about files or file sizes anymore.
  - zeta0134 11y ago
    They really shouldn't; I work in IT, and typically describe file sizes to my clients using the metric prefixes; if they're curious I'll explain the difference (1000 is actually 1024 at each level) but the difference is usually negligible, and modern operating systems round the difference away when displaying the simplified sizes to the user.
- qb45 11y ago
  Be careful, this may equally well be a reason to advertise RAM sticks as having 8.589GB capacity :)
- Avernar 11y ago
  I grew up with computers so tinking binary is not an issue for me. Storage capacity has always been wierd. A 1.44MB floppy actually has 2,880 512byte sectors. Base 2 and base 10 in the same measurement!
soneil 11y ago
I always find this to be fascinating logic. Where else in computing is it perfectly normal to hear "I prefer to be wrong"?
- alextgordon 11y ago
  I hereby define 1 megawatt to equal 7^7 watts, because I find that more convenient. Any light bulbs not sold in base 7 units are part of a conspiracy by light bulb manufacturers.
- thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  How is this wrong?
  - garrettgrimsley 11y ago
    Sticking with the GB example: GB is the SI unit symbol for gigabyte. The SI prefix giga denotes 1000³. The proper way to denote a drive size in terms of 1024³ bytes would be gibibytes, or GiB.
    - andromeduck 11y ago
      The byte notation doesn't make any sense to me if you're using SI. It's kind of like saying Giga Inches or KiloCM, just seems wrong
      - khedoros 11y ago
        I'd consider a byte to be like a mole: it's the base unit that we actually use, and it's proper to apply an SI prefix to, but it's defined as a specific multiple of a smaller unit (8 bits vs 6.02 * 10^^23 particles). "Giga inches" sounds wrong for two reasons: first, that larger distances like that are customarily expressed in units more suited to their scale, and second, that that measurement system generally doesn't use SI-style prefixes. "KiloCM" sounds wrong because you're applying two SI prefixes to one unit and using the wrong capitalization for both "centi" and "meter". kcm could technically be represented by the "dam" unit, although it's more common to show things in that scale just as meters.
Flimm 11y ago
Using base-2 units is fine by me as long as you use the KiB MiB notation so I can immediately understand that you're using base-2.
- kazinator 11y ago
  "Kibi" and "Mebi" is moron speak. A kilobyte is 1024, a megabyte is 10241024, and a gigabyte is 10241024*1024. Period. Anyone who is using base 10 is simply wrong. Or lying to sell you a smaller storage unit. Whatever confusion there exists, it was created by dishonest mass storage manufacturers. Prior to 1990-something, there was no confusion. As larger and larger storage devices became available on the mass consumer market, the sneaky bastards at Seagate, Quantum et al started to use base 10 to make their products appear more capacious. The solution for that is to simply take back the kilobyte. Possibly, legislation could help: make it unlawful for a storage device which holds 100000000000 bytes to be called a gigabyte device.
  - erikpukinskis 11y ago
    Of course that's historically true. The point is it doesn't make sense so it should be changed. Kilo means 1,000 for every unit of measure except bytes. Mega means 1,000,000 for every unit of measure except bytes. It doesn't even make sense... 1024 isn't a base two number, it's a base 10 number! If you really wanted to represent 1024 bytes in base 2, it would be 1000000000 bytes. Kibi and Mebi are not moron speak, they are the correct term for these quantities in base 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix Using a base 10 prefix for a base 2 number is just historical weirdness. There's no sensical formal framework in which it fits with other uses of these prefixes. It's good to try to preserve old standards wherever possible. No need to reinvent the wheel. But in the long term in computer science we are trying to get to a world where ideas make sense together and form an easy to understand system. In the long term it's better if people don't have to learn this arcane idea that prefixes are base-10 everywhere except digital storage.
  - gdwatson 11y ago
    I like to mock the drive-maker's kilobyte too, but in their defense the tradition is older than standardized byte and word sizes. There was a time when drive sizes were measured in bits, and they naturally used SI prefixes for those -- nobody has bit-addressable memory. That said, they aren't measuring them in bits any more, and using gigabyte in the SI way is definitely misleading.
deleted 11y ago
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by Avernar 11y ago

brucedawson 11y ago

You may be the first commenter who has actually given a reason for preferring base 2 units for file sizes. I'm not sure it justifies exposing base-2 sizes to non-geek consumers, but it is a valid reason.

mehrdada 11y ago
I'm not sure why "non-geek customers" should care about files or file sizes anymore.
- zeta0134 11y ago
  They really shouldn't; I work in IT, and typically describe file sizes to my clients using the metric prefixes; if they're curious I'll explain the difference (1000 is actually 1024 at each level) but the difference is usually negligible, and modern operating systems round the difference away when displaying the simplified sizes to the user.
qb45 11y ago
Be careful, this may equally well be a reason to advertise RAM sticks as having 8.589GB capacity :)
Avernar 11y ago
I grew up with computers so tinking binary is not an issue for me. Storage capacity has always been wierd. A 1.44MB floppy actually has 2,880 512byte sectors. Base 2 and base 10 in the same measurement!

soneil 11y ago

I always find this to be fascinating logic. Where else in computing is it perfectly normal to hear "I prefer to be wrong"?

alextgordon 11y ago
I hereby define 1 megawatt to equal 7^7 watts, because I find that more convenient. Any light bulbs not sold in base 7 units are part of a conspiracy by light bulb manufacturers.
thescriptkiddie 11y ago
How is this wrong?
- garrettgrimsley 11y ago
  Sticking with the GB example: GB is the SI unit symbol for gigabyte. The SI prefix giga denotes 1000³. The proper way to denote a drive size in terms of 1024³ bytes would be gibibytes, or GiB.
  - andromeduck 11y ago
    The byte notation doesn't make any sense to me if you're using SI. It's kind of like saying Giga Inches or KiloCM, just seems wrong
    - khedoros 11y ago
      I'd consider a byte to be like a mole: it's the base unit that we actually use, and it's proper to apply an SI prefix to, but it's defined as a specific multiple of a smaller unit (8 bits vs 6.02 * 10^^23 particles). "Giga inches" sounds wrong for two reasons: first, that larger distances like that are customarily expressed in units more suited to their scale, and second, that that measurement system generally doesn't use SI-style prefixes. "KiloCM" sounds wrong because you're applying two SI prefixes to one unit and using the wrong capitalization for both "centi" and "meter". kcm could technically be represented by the "dam" unit, although it's more common to show things in that scale just as meters.

Flimm 11y ago

Using base-2 units is fine by me as long as you use the KiB MiB notation so I can immediately understand that you're using base-2.

kazinator 11y ago
"Kibi" and "Mebi" is moron speak. A kilobyte is 1024, a megabyte is 10241024, and a gigabyte is 10241024*1024. Period. Anyone who is using base 10 is simply wrong. Or lying to sell you a smaller storage unit. Whatever confusion there exists, it was created by dishonest mass storage manufacturers. Prior to 1990-something, there was no confusion. As larger and larger storage devices became available on the mass consumer market, the sneaky bastards at Seagate, Quantum et al started to use base 10 to make their products appear more capacious. The solution for that is to simply take back the kilobyte. Possibly, legislation could help: make it unlawful for a storage device which holds 100000000000 bytes to be called a gigabyte device.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  Of course that's historically true. The point is it doesn't make sense so it should be changed. Kilo means 1,000 for every unit of measure except bytes. Mega means 1,000,000 for every unit of measure except bytes. It doesn't even make sense... 1024 isn't a base two number, it's a base 10 number! If you really wanted to represent 1024 bytes in base 2, it would be 1000000000 bytes. Kibi and Mebi are not moron speak, they are the correct term for these quantities in base 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix Using a base 10 prefix for a base 2 number is just historical weirdness. There's no sensical formal framework in which it fits with other uses of these prefixes. It's good to try to preserve old standards wherever possible. No need to reinvent the wheel. But in the long term in computer science we are trying to get to a world where ideas make sense together and form an easy to understand system. In the long term it's better if people don't have to learn this arcane idea that prefixes are base-10 everywhere except digital storage.
- gdwatson 11y ago
  I like to mock the drive-maker's kilobyte too, but in their defense the tradition is older than standardized byte and word sizes. There was a time when drive sizes were measured in bits, and they naturally used SI prefixes for those -- nobody has bit-addressable memory. That said, they aren't measuring them in bits any more, and using gigabyte in the SI way is definitely misleading.

deleted 11y ago

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