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Different operating systems prefer one way or the other, or a mix. MacOS uses powers of 1000, most Linux desktop environments use the correct symbol (1000 and

Different operating systems prefer one way or the other, or a mix. MacOS uses powers of 1000, most Linux desktop environments use the correct symbol (1000 and kB, or 1024 and kiB etc), but Unix tools tend to use 1024 and "K". I believe Windows uses the non-standard symbol. I much prefer to work with powers of 1000. Running "df" on our storage cluster shows 2675230000214900 Although, since my terminal has this font [1] installed, it actually displays like this, with the 2 underlined: 2͟6752͟3͟0͟0002͟1͟4͟900 It's easier to think about 2.6PB than 2.3PiB (how many 200GB files do I have space for, etc). [1] https://blog.janestreet.com/commas-in-big-numbers-everywhere/ https://blog.janestreet.com/commas-in-big-numbers-everywhere...

laumars 5y ago
That’s fine if storage is your only concern, but memory doesn’t work like that. RAM has to be grouped in powers of 8 and assigned in binary. 1000^n doesn’t make any sense at a low level. It was a convention that followed later when HDD manufacturers wanted to make their drives look bigger.
- makapuf 5y ago
  Well it makes more sense to think about memory in pages or at least words (or cache lines if you think performance), disks in blocks and network in packets anyway, memory is very rarely byte addressable natively... not being picky, just to underline that power of two adressable bytes does not sum it perfectly either.
- fomine3 5y ago
  NAND chips are built in same way, but SSD manufacturers sell 256GB(not GiB) drives. That's partially because some SSD uses the difference (256GiB - 256GB) for reserved area for wear leveling. Of course primary reason is to align with HDD.
techrat 5y ago
Except that's not how it's stored on the disk itself. All of the sectors on your drives are in base 2. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 sector sizes... So even if your files are 200GB, the actual space they consume are not base 10 as you count on your storage cluster, but 200GB plus the last remaining sector that is used but unfilled as the rest of that sector cannot be used by another file. You can count your sizes in Base 10 but the actual use of space is still Base 2. If a file is exactly 1000 bits and your sector sizes are 1024... that 1000 bit file is using 1024 bits of space on that drive. And no, just because they advertise or display drives as having 1,000,000 Bytes = 1MB... it doesn't change how space is sectored out on that drive itself.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  A 200,000,000B file vs 200,000,512B makes essentially no difference when purchasing hardware, planning storage, moving data, sizing systems etc. Someone telling me a file is 200MB when they mean 200MiB (210MB) can make a difference, which is why we should strive for accuracy.

laumars 5y ago

That’s fine if storage is your only concern, but memory doesn’t work like that. RAM has to be grouped in powers of 8 and assigned in binary. 1000^n doesn’t make any sense at a low level. It was a convention that followed later when HDD manufacturers wanted to make their drives look bigger.

makapuf 5y ago
Well it makes more sense to think about memory in pages or at least words (or cache lines if you think performance), disks in blocks and network in packets anyway, memory is very rarely byte addressable natively... not being picky, just to underline that power of two adressable bytes does not sum it perfectly either.
fomine3 5y ago
NAND chips are built in same way, but SSD manufacturers sell 256GB(not GiB) drives. That's partially because some SSD uses the difference (256GiB - 256GB) for reserved area for wear leveling. Of course primary reason is to align with HDD.

techrat 5y ago

Except that's not how it's stored on the disk itself. All of the sectors on your drives are in base 2. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 sector sizes... So even if your files are 200GB, the actual space they consume are not base 10 as you count on your storage cluster, but 200GB plus the last remaining sector that is used but unfilled as the rest of that sector cannot be used by another file. You can count your sizes in Base 10 but the actual use of space is still Base 2. If a file is exactly 1000 bits and your sector sizes are 1024... that 1000 bit file is using 1024 bits of space on that drive. And no, just because they advertise or display drives as having 1,000,000 Bytes = 1MB... it doesn't change how space is sectored out on that drive itself.

Symbiote 5y ago
A 200,000,000B file vs 200,000,512B makes essentially no difference when purchasing hardware, planning storage, moving data, sizing systems etc. Someone telling me a file is 200MB when they mean 200MiB (210MB) can make a difference, which is why we should strive for accuracy.