Change to base 2 for HDD capacities?

[SG872]

Is there a way/option to have the UI show disk capacities in the base 2 system instead of base 10?

Ex: Instead of 1TB it would show 931GB, and the same would be said for used space.  You know when 1024 bytes = 1KB instead of 1000 bytes

Edited May 15, 2017 by SG872

[gubbgnutten]

If this ever becomes an option, I sincerely hope that the IEC prefixes are used (resulting in KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB and so on...)

[bonienl]

Really, Microsoft should update their OS and use the correct abbreviations.

 

[garycase]

The difference between "computer-ese" and "disk-drive-maker-ese" in capacity has been around for a VERY long time (at least since I first started working with computer 54 years ago) ... and isn't likely to change.

 

If LimeTech displayed the "computer-ese" values on the GUI (i.e. 1KB = 2^10), folks would complain about the disks being smaller than the labeled capacity (which is, of course, in "disk-drive-maker-ese" (1KB = 10^3).

 

There is, of course, no "right way" -- and it's very unlikely that the the IEC's suggestion to use "kibibytes" instead of "kilobytes" will become widely adapted.   I think users will simply have to understand the difference in how PC's vs. disk manufacturers measure and know what's being displayed.

 

[bonienl]

Let me ask a question:

 

File size = 100 MB

Link speed = 100 Mbps

 

How long does it take to transfer this file?

 

A) 100MB = 100 * 8 = 800Mb / 100Mbps = 8 sec

B) 100MB = 100 * 1024 * 1024 * 8 = 838.86 / 100Mbps = 8.4 sec

C) 100MB = 100 * 8 = 800Mb / 100 * 1024 * 1024 = 7.6 sec

D) 100MB = 100 * 1024 * 1024 * 8 / 100 * 1024 * 1024 = 8 sec

 

[SG872]

The thing is in unRAID it isn't consistent.  The disks shows as 1TB instead of 931 GiB, but when you create a vdisk say 700GB it is actually 700GiB and not 751GB

Edited May 15, 2017 by SG872

[bonienl]

It's true that consistency can improve, the VM part is an example.

 

In other parts of the configuration, e.g. cache minimum free size, the following is used (see also help)

 

KB = 1,000
MB = 1,000,000
GB = 1,000,000,000
TB = 1,000,000,000,000

If no suffix, a count of 1024-byte blocks is assumed.

Examples:

2GB => 2,000,000,000 bytes
2000000 => 2,048,000,000 bytes

[garycase]

4 hours ago, bonienl said:

If no suffix, a count of 1024-byte blocks is assumed.

Examples:

2GB => 2,000,000,000 bytes
2000000 => 2,048,000,000 bytes

 

Very interesting -- and definitely a lack of consistency !