8GB USB key only shows 6.43GB?

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MadBull

Member
Hi, sorry I don't know if this is the correct place to post my question. But anyway, I have an 8GB SanDisk Cruzer drive and when I plug it into Vista it only shows 6.43GB. Is this normal? If so where is the other 1.5GB'ish of space gone?
 

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Hi MadBull,

Because of the way in which drive capacities are advertised and the way in which they are detected on a computer, let's do some calculations:

8GB = 8 x 10^9 = 8,000,000,000 bytes

However, this is Decimal, whereas the computer uses Binary. Therefore:

8,000,000,000 / 2^30 = 7.45GB (to 2 decimal places). This is the actual capacity of a stick advertised as 8GB.

That still leaves just over 1GB. Is the stick a U3 model? When you plug it in, is it detected as a single drive or a multiple drive? If it is detected as a multiple drive, then it is a U3 model. These have a separate partition containing the U3 subsystem, as well as associated programs supplied on the stick. It is possible that the total of these programs adds upto the missing 1GB.
 

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    Intel Core-i5-3570K 4-core @ 3.4GHz (Ivy Bridge) (OC 4.2GHz)
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    ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M
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    4 x 4GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B (16GB)
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    C: 320GB Seagate SATA D: 720GB Seagate SATA
You *are* ignoring some of the features.

U3, by default, has *2* drives with it - a "cd rom" driver that has the main U3 stuff on it (the U3 software etc) and then the main drive, which is used for your storage.

My personal opinion - get rid of the U3 crap by using the U3 uninstaller - see Bring the power of portable software to your USB flash drive - make it a U3 smart drive! - and then format the UFD using NTFS - and then enter the word of PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives
 

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I would reformat the usb drive with a different format:D
 

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    DDR2, PC2-5300 (333 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Hyundai Electronics,DDR2, PC2-5300 (333 MHz), 2048 MBytes, Ap
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    I like Spore,Rabbits and I'm a Computer Freak.
Thanks for the links and replies! It worked, I now have 7.47GB on an 8GB memory stick. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    3.6 Ghz AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
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    Gigabyte MA790X-UDP4
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    4GB OCZ DDR2 800Mhz
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    Asus EAH4850 512MB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SyncMaster 2253BW
    Hard Drives
    C: 320GB Seagate SATA D: 720GB Seagate SATA
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