Storage Digest: Computer Makers Sued Over Hard-Drive Capacity Claim

[MTAtech]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1273792,00.asp

I noticed this myself, I recently bought two 120GB drives and two 40GB drives, from Western Digital and Maxtor and neither had the advertised space.

[osprey4]

This is the oldest game in the world of hard drives. Why is it just now lawyers are picking this up?

Why didn't you put this in tech news?

[Jonty]

So what about when a car is advertised as say a 1.5 litre but is actually 1498cc?? Not worth bothering about in my opinion!

[phenious]

and thats why no one bothered at first. Back in the days of the 8GB HDD and such no one cried over a few MB just in your example Jonty. But when I buy 120GB and it shows up formated as 111GB I would like to know where 9GB went. Imagine for the new drives that claim 250GB that shows up with only 229GB or so... thats wrong... I think they should just fix it. Thats a little more than a little difference... I dont think they should be sued but I think they should change the way they total size. Hard drive people base the ammount on 1000Kb to the MB when its really 1024KB to a MB so after a while the little differnce makes a big one... Its not hard to change the dang boxes...

-: phenious :-

[Ed_S]

Hmmm.. at first thought, I'd agree with osprey - this is an ancient thing. Difference between how the HD makers rate a drive and how Windows formats one. Every retail HD I've ever had explains this in the instructions.

But the suit does NOT name any harddrive manufacturers, only large computer builders like Dell, HP, Gateway, etc.

Think about it - if they've been labeling their machines as having X amount of HD space (as rated by HD makers) , yet selling them preformatted to the size Windows interprets, then this case has a LOT of merit!

For example, if an ad read:
"Includes a 100BG HD (manufacturer's rated capacity)"
that's NOT the same as saying
"Includes 100GB of storage space!!!"

But which statement has ad appeal???

Now, let's say you're a new first-time owner and find out that your 100 gb COMPUTER has only 93GB of storage space...

[Tarp2]

Right, I think it is time that their capacity adds up to their claims. Time to standardize the ratings.

I believe the the lawyers ran out of steam with the McDonalds suits, Now it is time to move on to greener pastures.

[MTAtech]

osprey4, you are right. I should have put it in tech news.