But K.I.T.T actually delivered on the full self driving part.

Thank you for taking the time to read it ❤️. I’m currently out of office I’ll try to find and fix the typo you mentioned once I’m back, thanks for pointing it out.

❤️ Thank you for taking the time to read it. And thank you so much for pointing that out, you are completely right and I totally didn’t think about that while writing the article, probably because negative exponents are pretty rare in computer science (as in milli-bytes, etc.). I’ll fix that in a few days. Thanks again for pointing that out.

❤️ Thank you for taking the time to read it and thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it.

There is a benefit in using 1000 because it’s consistent with all the other 1000 conversions from kg to gramm, km to meter, etc. And you can do it in your head because we use a base 10 number system.

36826639 bytes are 36.826639 MB. But how many MiB? I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you without a calculator.

The underlying chips certainly are exact powers of two but the drive size you get as a consumer is practically never an exact power of two, that’s why it doesn’t really make sense to divide by 1024.

The size you provided would be 500107862016 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = 465.76174163818359375 GiB

Divided by 1000³ it would be 500.107862016 GB, so both numbers are not “pretty” and would’ve to be rounded. That’s why there is no benefit in using 1024 for storage devices, even SSDs.

The situation is a bit different with RAM. 16 “gig” modules are exactly 17179869184 bytes. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=prime+factors+of+17179869184

So you could say 17.179869184 GB or 16 GiB. Note that those 16 GiB are not rounded and the exact number of bytes for that RAM module. So for memory like caches, RAM, etc. it definitely makes sense to use binary prefixes with 1024 conversion but for storage devices it wouldn’t make a difference because you’d have to round anyway.

Not even SSDs are. Do you have an SSD? You should lookup the exact drive size in bytes, it’s very likely not an exact power of two.

Thank you for taking the time to read it and your feedback.

Your replies here come off as pretty condescending.

That was definitely never my intention but a lot of people here said something similar. I should probably work on my English (I’m not a native speaker) to phrase things more carefully.

You shouldn’t just say “did you read the article” and then “it’s in this section of the article”

It never crossed my mind this could be interpreted in a negative way. I tried to gauge if someone read it and still disagreed or if someone didn’t read it and disagrees, because those situations are two different things, at least for me. The hint with the sections was also meant as a pointer because I know that most people won’t read the entire thing but maybe have 5min on their hand to read the relevant section.

❤️ Thank you for taking the time to read it.

SI prefixes are literally just base ten and not really about human psychology.

If a hard drive has exactly 8’269’642’989’568 bytes what’s the benefit of using binary prefixes instead of decimal prefixes?

There is a reason for memory like caches, buffer sizes and RAM. But we don’t count printer paper with binary prefixes because the printer communication uses binary.

There is no(!) reason to label hard drive sizes with binary prefixes.

KiB and MiB are not SI prefixes but IEC binary prefixes but the names are derived from the SI names for simplicity.

Look up the exact number of bytes and then explain to me what the benefits are of using 1024 conversations instead of 1000 for a hard drive?

I don’t get feedback just because you read it. I’m thankful for feedback but my sentence was accurate. I don’t benefit if you read it.

Calling 1024 a kilo is intellectually dishonest. Your conversation is perfectly fine.

That’s true but the entire disk size is not an exact power of two that’s why binary prefixes (1024 conversation) don’t have any benefit whatsoever when it comes to hard drives. With memory it’s a bit different because other than with storage devices RAM size is always exactly a power of two.

Binary prefixes (the ones with 1024 conversations) are used to simplify numbers that are exact powers of two - for example RAM and similar types of memory. Hard drive sizes are never exact powers of two. Disk storing bits don’t have anything to do with the size of the disk.

True and that’s what the article is about. You should check out the interactive diagram in the “(Un)lucky coincidence” section.

So why don’t they just label drives in Terabit instead of terabyte. The number would be even bigger. Why don’t Europeans also use Fahrenheit, with the bigger numbers the temperature for sure would instantly feel warmer 🤣

Jokes aside. Even if HDD manufacturers benefit from “the bigger numbers” using the 1000 conversation is the objectively only correct answer here, because there is nothing intrinsically base 2 about hard drives. You should give the blog post a read 😉

You should read the blog post. It’s not a matter of option.