Formatted capacity
Here is the real hard drive capacity as is reported by any OS after formatting. The Western Digital and Seagate had the smaller capacity and the Maxtor and Hitachi had better results. The best result is still below the claimed 120 GB.
This result is due to the calculation method. Computer scientists and machines count in binary. For us a Kilo octet is equal to 1024 bytes and not 1000 as Kilo should be defined. For quite some time now, hard drive manufacturers changed their calculation method and use Kilo-byte = 1000 octets. Officially they are correct because since 1998 the international norm is 1 Kilo-byte = 1000 octets, 1 Kibi-byte = 1024 octets.
When a hard drive manufacturer sells a 120 GB hard drive, it sells you 120 Gigabytes and not 120 Gibibytes. Our OS continues logically in binary to count Giga as Gibi (Gibi pour Gigabinary, Mebi for megabinary and kibi for Kilobinary).
According to this Giga definition, the Western and Seagate hard drives reached 120.0 GB, the Maxtor 122.9 GB and Hitachi 123.5. The result is the same in the end as there will be more space with a Hitachi or Maxtor than with a Seagate or Western.
