14GB iPad - Tech Blog (wh)

A 16GB iPad has approximately 14GB of space. So on an iPad, specs are based on actual count and usage uses the number 1024 for all conversions in computers. Thus 16,000,000,000 bytes, = 16,000,000,000/1024 to get 14GB. There are multiple legal ways of defining bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, etc. A standard kilobyte (KB) is defined as 1024 bytes. But drive manufacturers use the more ‘lean’ definition of kilobyte, which is a very strict 1000 bytes, as opposed to 1024 bytes. http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/a/ActualHDSizes.htm At some point in time, most users have come across a situation where a drive or disk being used run out of space even though there is thought to be plenty of space. A lot of times, this is the rude awakening for the consumer that the device they are attempting to store data on is not as large as it was advertised. In this article, we take a look at how manufacturers rate the capacity of storage devices such as hard drives, floppies, flash media and compact disks and their actual size. Bits, Bytes and Prefixes. All computer data is stored in a binary format as either a one or zero. Eight of these bits together for the most commonly referred to item in computing, the byte. The various amounts of storage capacity are referred by a prefix to represent a specific amount, similar to the metric prefixes. Since all computers are based on binary math, these prefixes represent base 2 amounts. Each level is an increment … Continue reading →