Missing gb's after upgrading HDD in PS3

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Hobchild

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#66732 22-Aug-2010 17:16

I recently upgraded my PS3 HDD from a 60gb to a 500gb. Everything went reletively smoothly after I reinstalled the back up data (which was only 16gb) I went and checked the system info which preceded to tell me I had 391gb out of 465gb.
Now I'm not asking why did I only get 465gb but anybody that can do basic math can work out that
465 - 16 does not equal 391.

The craziest thing about it is that there is more gb's missing off my new HDD than could have possibly been on my old one.

Has anybody else found this?

Also my TVNZ on demand logo has disappeared but I'm not worried about that as I never used it.

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#371557 23-Aug-2010 15:36

PS3 keeps some aside for system use. I believe it's proportional to the capacity. So, as you said the 465GB is obvious, but then the system reserves around 10% or more. When I put a 500GB in mine, I had something just over 400GB left after formatting (before I copied anything back onto it).

Bottom line, it's normal.

Jaxson

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#371578 23-Aug-2010 15:53

bazzer: When I put a 500GB in mine, I had something just over 400GB left after formatting (before I copied anything back onto it).

Bottom line, it's normal.

xpd

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#371612 23-Aug-2010 16:14

Correct...

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6126_102-0.html?threadID=203052

"It has long been a bone of contention that HD sizes stated on the box, in your case 500GB, is not actually the size that the OS displays once you have it in the computer.

"Modern operating systems such as Mac OS X use binary mathematics to define the total capacity of a hard drive. Using binary math, an 80-gigabyte (GB) hard drive reports approximately 74.51 GB of available space.

In binary math, 1 GB is equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes, whereas conventional (or base 10) mathematics instead calculate 1 GB as exactly 1,000,000,000 bytes."

Using your trusty OS X calculator, you will see that your 500GB drive measured in conventional mathematics has a 500,000,000,000 byte capacity.
The drive size as reported in Binary math is 500000000000 divided by 1,073,741,824 (the number of bytes in a GB in Binary math) which gives 465.661287307739 GB or roughly 465.6 GB"

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Hobchild

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#371726 23-Aug-2010 18:15

Thank you everyone for your input. I had since found out (after a rather strenuous google search) this to be true. However nobody seems to know why so much. I haven't noticed any sort of performance improvements. It's almost like we get punished a bit for having bigger hdd's. Not a big problem though as I now have plenty of empty space regardless.

Also my TVNZ on demand icon magically came back shortly after starting initial thread. Spooky.

cgrew

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#371983 24-Aug-2010 10:22

Hobchild: However nobody seems to know why so much.

Also my TVNZ on demand icon magically came back shortly after starting initial thread. Spooky.

That's the answer - The drive size as reported in Binary math is 500000000000 divided by 1,073,741,824 (the number of bytes in a GB in Binary math) which gives 465.661287307739 GB or roughly 465.6 GB"

As for your missing and re-appearing TVNZ on demand icon, thats a mystery to me..

Possibly a small glitch..?

xpd

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#371985 24-Aug-2010 10:34

From what Ive read elsewhere, you wont see any performance gains by putting in a faster HDD into a PS3, its just the way it is. Just enjoy the extra space :)

I dont tend to keep anything on the internal drive apart from games, I have a 1TB external drive which all my media etc is stored on, makes it easier to plug into a PC etc if needed to watch things in another room :)

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bazzer

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#371987 24-Aug-2010 10:47

cgrew: That's the answer - The drive size as reported in Binary math is 500000000000 divided by 1,073,741,824 (the number of bytes in a GB in Binary math) which gives 465.661287307739 GB or roughly 465.6 GB"

As for your missing and re-appearing TVNZ on demand icon, thats a mystery to me..

Possibly a small glitch..?

That's not the answer, actually. Everyone is aware of the 500GB = 465GiB issue. The real question is why a brand new 500GB hard drive in a PS3 has only about 416GiB free. No one but Sony really knows I guess why they decided to keep back a proportion of the drive rather than a fixed amount for the system.

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cgrew

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#371992 24-Aug-2010 10:56

bazzer:
cgrew: That's the answer - The drive size as reported in Binary math is 500000000000 divided by 1,073,741,824 (the number of bytes in a GB in Binary math) which gives 465.661287307739 GB or roughly 465.6 GB"

As for your missing and re-appearing TVNZ on demand icon, thats a mystery to me..

Possibly a small glitch..?

That's not the answer, actually. Everyone is aware of the 500GB = 465GiB issue. The real question is why a brand new 500GB hard drive in a PS3 has only about 416GiB free. No one but Sony really knows I guess why they decided to keep back a proportion of the drive rather than a fixed amount for the system.

Can you justify as to why there would be 85 gigabytes for system use on the PS3 then?

To me it really doesn't make sense as to why that amount would be kept for system use on a larger hard-drive?

cgrew

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#372000 24-Aug-2010 11:09

bazzer:
cgrew: That's the answer - The drive size as reported in Binary math is 500000000000 divided by 1,073,741,824 (the number of bytes in a GB in Binary math) which gives 465.661287307739 GB or roughly 465.6 GB"

As for your missing and re-appearing TVNZ on demand icon, thats a mystery to me..

Possibly a small glitch..?

I guess why they decided to keep back a proportion of the drive rather than a fixed amount for the system.

Maybe for advancements on the PS3's operating system for future preference perhaps?

bazzer

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#372024 24-Aug-2010 11:50

cgrew:
bazzer:
cgrew: That's the answer - The drive size as reported in Binary math is 500000000000 divided by 1,073,741,824 (the number of bytes in a GB in Binary math) which gives 465.661287307739 GB or roughly 465.6 GB"

As for your missing and re-appearing TVNZ on demand icon, thats a mystery to me..

Possibly a small glitch..?

That's not the answer, actually. Everyone is aware of the 500GB = 465GiB issue. The real question is why a brand new 500GB hard drive in a PS3 has only about 416GiB free. No one but Sony really knows I guess why they decided to keep back a proportion of the drive rather than a fixed amount for the system.

Can you justify as to why there would be 85 gigabytes for system use on the PS3 then?

To me it really doesn't make sense as to why that amount would be kept for system use on a larger hard-drive?

No, I can't justify it which is why I said "No one but Sony really knows". For a start, it's not 85GB. As you indicated 500GB is really only 465GiB. So, now we're down to 50GiB ~= 11%. All I know is that the PS3 reserves abut 11% of space regardless of hard drive size. I have no idea why, it just does.

It also doesn't make sense to me ("rather than a fixed amount"), but then I didn't design the PS3 OS. I don't think it's for future enhancements because those have historically been downloadable extras that take up HDD space (e.g. photo viewer or Life on Playstation etc).

cgrew

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#372031 24-Aug-2010 12:00

bazzer:
cgrew:
bazzer:
cgrew: That's the answer - The drive size as reported in Binary math is 500000000000 divided by 1,073,741,824 (the number of bytes in a GB in Binary math) which gives 465.661287307739 GB or roughly 465.6 GB"

As for your missing and re-appearing TVNZ on demand icon, thats a mystery to me..

Possibly a small glitch..?

That's not the answer, actually. Everyone is aware of the 500GB = 465GiB issue. The real question is why a brand new 500GB hard drive in a PS3 has only about 416GiB free. No one but Sony really knows I guess why they decided to keep back a proportion of the drive rather than a fixed amount for the system.

Can you justify as to why there would be 85 gigabytes for system use on the PS3 then?

To me it really doesn't make sense as to why that amount would be kept for system use on a larger hard-drive?

I don't think it's for future enhancements because those have historically been downloadable extras that take up HDD space (e.g. photo viewer or Life on Playstation etc).

What about for future enhancements on the PS3's firmware though? No doubt Sony are going to give users the option to download the photo viewer application..?

Those applications are just as you stated in your above comment - "extras" and yes they will use up available HDD memory.

cgrew

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#372037 24-Aug-2010 12:08

Extra applications and photo editors aren't really needed but enhanced firmware updates in my understanding are needed.

Logically it makes sense that Sony would preserve a certain percentage on the HDD for this method.

bazzer

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#372094 24-Aug-2010 13:39

cgrew: Extra applications and photo editors aren't really needed but enhanced firmware updates in my understanding are needed.

Logically it makes sense that Sony would preserve a certain percentage on the HDD for this method.

That's not logical in the slightest. Why should a percentage be required rather than a fixed amount? How does someone with a 500GB HDD need more space reserved for "firmware updates" than someone with a 60GB HDD? Are the 500GBers going to get more updated updates? No.

Also, the current firmware update is only about 170MB and in any case firmware is not necessarily stored on the HDD (e.g. early models) so it's irrelevant.

In any case, it doesn't bother me. It is what it is. Now I have a large HDD in my PS3, it seems like it's got 45GiB less than I'd have if I had a 60GB HDD in there, but actually I have over 350GiB more so it's all good. It's probably used for indexing or cache or something, I don't really know or care.

Worse is that they've removed the OtherOS and now I have 10GB partition that I can't get rid of as I don't have another external harddrive big enough to make the backup, but that's an issue for another thread!

cgrew

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#372195 24-Aug-2010 15:04

Interesting point that was only a theory. It just seems odd that a large amount of fixed HDD space is put aside.. For what? I assumed it would be for firmware, which can vary in size as well.

Haha I presume you are referring to the Linux OS removal..? Well that doesn't bother me in the slightest ;)

cgrew

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#372206 24-Aug-2010 15:20

Just spoke to a mate who works for Sony Playstation NZ, and he said that the larger HDD's have more memory put aside for system usage. And that the bigger HDD's (500GB for instance) utilize this to be operational after the available space has been used up.

Makes sense.

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