The stick I purchased, PNY 256GB USB 3.0, has a capacity of only 235GB. I've formated it and it's still the same. What's up with this? null

Question

Paul · Accepted Answer

That is how all memory devices work. There has to be header records & other records so the device can be read by hardware. Formatting take up some space.

BIGk · Answer

from PNY website, I wondered same thing;

By industry standards, 1GB equals 1,073,741,824. If you divide the announced density by the computer’s 1GB definition, you will get the available space.
For example: 64,000,000,000 (64GB) divided by 1,073,741,842 = 59.6GB of available space.

Anotherhappycustomer · Answer

Most companies use 1 GB as 1 billion bytes when it should be 1 GB = 1 billion, 24 million bytes, thus the discrepancy. It happens with virtually any drive (flash, hard, USB, etc).

Skyhook · Answer

The file size decrease is a normal thing with any storage device. The advertised capacity is the RAW un-formatted space. AFTER you format it, the available space drops because the formatting itself burns up space! Nice, huh? That's normal and nothing you can do about it except maybe increase cluster size during the format process which may give you a bit more usable space.

Answered by Skyhook 9 years ago

Actress · Answer

It is my understanding there are things on the drive to make it work and that takes up space. No thumb drive I have ever owned actually have what it is advertised due to software on it already. It is usually a small amount. Yours sounds about right.

Answered by Actress 9 years ago

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“The stick I purchased, PNY 256GB USB 3.0, has a capacity of only 235GB. I've formated it and it's still the same. What's up with this?”

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