If i buy a 500gb internal hard drive how much actual space will i get?

Question

I think there are normally some system files on them that decrease the space.

Answer 1

--> UNDERSTANDING GIGABYTES
When people buy computers, they're told they're getting a hard drive of
a certain size--80 gigabytes, perhaps. But when they check the computer
they find only 74GB. Where did the other 6GB go?

This is the difference between marketing and math. As far as marketers
are concerned, 80 billion bytes is 80GB. But it's not. A gigabyte is
1.074 billion bytes (2 to the power of 30). If you divide 80 by 1.074,
you'll get 74.6. That's the true number of gigabytes.

These round numbers are fairly easy to remember. A kilobyte is 2 to
the power of 10 (or 2^10), a megabyte is 2^20, and a terabyte (1.0995
trillion bytes!) is 2^40.

Few people are going to fill up that so-called 80GB drive, regardless
of the stated size. Still, I wish marketers were more honest about
hard drive sizes. It should be easy to understand what you're
really getting.

Answer 2

aprrox 463,129,088,000 Gb ( 465.66129 )

figued as follows

true size 500 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 536,870,912,000

false size 500 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 = 500,000,000,000

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diferrence in true verse false size 36,870,912,000 bytes

A common marketing ploy by hard drive manufacturers is to calculate the size of a hard disk by using the decimal 10 system of 1000 bytes = one kilobyte, instead of the binary system where 1024 bytes = one kilobyte (your PC only knows binary). This rounding off practice means you end up with a hard drive with a capacity less than what is indicated on the label.

One megabyte of hard drive space is 1,000,000 bytes: 10^6 bytes. Operating systems calculate one megabyte as 2^20 bytes, or 1,048,576 bytes. Manufacturers calculate gigabytes as 10^9 bytes (1000000000 bytes). Take the ratio and you get approximately 1.073. Divide 500 by 1.073 = 465.983

Answer 3

The difference isn't due to "marketing". It's due to the fact that manufacturers of drives use decimal measurements and Windows uses binary measurements. Both of them are reporting the correct number.
Binary numbers are numbers that are a power of 2.
Decimal numbers are numbers that are a power of 10.

2^10 is 1,024 the closest Decimal number is 10^3 or 1,000
2^20 is 1,048,576 The closest Decimal number is 10^6 or 1,000,000
2^30 is 1,073,741,824 The closest Decimal number is 10^9 or 1,000,000,000.

Kilo means 1 thousand
Mega means 1 million
Giga means 1 billion
Tera means 1 Trillion

1000/1024 = .9765625
1,000,000/1,048,576 = .9536743
1,000,000,000/1,073,741,824 = .93132257

Answer 4

its not really system files you have to worry about in terms of usable space... usually people feel they've been "burnt" when they buy a hard drive because the format capacity is less than the stated capacity (technically)... it will most likely come out to something 465GB

Answer 5

93% of the stated hard drive capacity is actually usable. This works for all hard drives. I have a 400GB hard drive whose actual usable space is 472GB. I also have a 300GB hard drive whose usable space is 279GB. So your 500GB will actually equate to 465GB.

Answer 6

Well, knowing hard drives and having had many, it'd probably be about 470gb (485gb tops)

Answer 7

i agree with 'nematzz' since huge disk space is supposed to be a backup drive or data drive. not good for system, it's gonna be slow...

Answer 8

you'll get approx. 495gb. it doesn't take much space whatever is in there.
get an external, it's much better.