The confusion arises from the fact that, when referring to RAM, we (mistakenly) use 'kilobyte', 'megabyte' or 'gigabyte' to mean 2^10, 2^20 or 2^30 bytes. The replacement terms of 'kibibyte', 'mebibyte' etc. do not appear to have gained widespread adoption. One can nostalgically appeal to the good old days in which a megabyte was a megabyte, and screw the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, but those days are long gone.
However, in common usage we now have the pretty awful scenario where, if a person says "a megabyte", the actual number of bytes they're talking about can change depending on where the data is stored! A megabyte of RAM is not a megabyte of hard disk space. The solution would be to standardise on binary prefixes, since we pretty much have to talk about RAM that way, and a consistent measurement across different media is eminently sensible.
The "hard drive maker conspiracy" story is driven by the fact that manufacturers have no real incentive to switch to binary prefixes, because that would make their drives look "smaller". Do you want the 300 gigabyte drive or the 279.4 gibibyte drive? Aside from the fact that hardly anyone knows that a gibibyte is, in the absence of any more information the larger number is probably better. Even worse, if you created a 300 gibibyte drive to compete with the 300 gigabyte drive, consumers would probably not realise that the 300 gibibyte drive is bigger. It's not exactly a conspiracy, but it is a suboptimal arrangement that results from the manufacturers' incentives.
> since we pretty much have to talk about RAM that way, and a consistent measurement across different media is eminently sensible.
Except that the HDD manufacturers are going to keep doing what they've been, and it'll just create more confusion among consumers. "What's the conversion factor between GB and GiB?"
> Even worse, if you created a 300 gibibyte drive to compete with the 300 gigabyte drive, consumers would probably not realise that the 300 gibibyte drive is bigger
One manufacturer could just start using phrases like "300 REAL gigabytes!" and market it aggressively. "7% more storage than the competition! Finally a drive that stores the amount you paid for!"
As for why the -bi- binary prefices haven't caught on, I think one of the biggest obstacles is that they just sound hilariously stupid...
Their claimed storage is correct. "Real gigabytes" are what disk manufacturers, and Linux, and others report. Microsoft calculates gibibytes (GiB, 2^9) but has always labeled them as gigabytes (GB, 10^3), which is what perpetuates this confusion.
They could also just standardize their storage sizes on the higher number and still advertise the higher number -- i.e., instead of selling a 300GB hard drive, they could sell a 322.12GB drive, which stores 300GiB.
The hard drive makers are correct. We should fix the mistake with RAM. 4GB of ram refers to gibibytes, not gigabytes. RAM comes in chunks of powers of 2 due to architecture. There is no reason the capacity of a group of spinning platters needs to be divided up into powers of 2. With that said, there is no reason to rate an SSD in gigabytes over gibibytes.
Ironically, my spell checker shows a little red squiggly under gibibyte. Even the developers don't believe it's a real word.
> "[...] and screw the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, but those days are long gone."
They're really not. SI still doesn't define any units relating to information quantity, so BIPM isn't relevant. This is one issue where an appeal to authority really doesn't fly. The relevant authorities (IEC, ISO, IEEE, JEDEC, etc.) didn't try to address the ambiguity until the late 90's, after it had spread into the general population.
> The confusion arises from the fact that, when referring to RAM, we (mistakenly) use 'kilobyte', 'megabyte' or 'gigabyte' to mean 2^10, 2^20 or 2^30 bytes.
It's not a mistake. In a living language, weight of usage trumps prescriptivism.
> However, in common usage we now have the pretty awful scenario where, if a person says "a megabyte", the actual number of bytes they're talking about can change depending on where the data is stored! A megabyte of RAM is not a megabyte of hard disk space.
That's not correct. A megabyte of RAM and a megabyte of HD are both 1,048,576 bytes, one megabyte. Again, usage trumps prescriptivism.
I agree that the hard-drive-manufacturer thing is not a "conspiracy;" it's simple false advertising that slips through the cracks of the law because of, again, a foolish belief in prescriptivism on the part of the enforcers.
However, in common usage we now have the pretty awful scenario where, if a person says "a megabyte", the actual number of bytes they're talking about can change depending on where the data is stored! A megabyte of RAM is not a megabyte of hard disk space. The solution would be to standardise on binary prefixes, since we pretty much have to talk about RAM that way, and a consistent measurement across different media is eminently sensible.
The "hard drive maker conspiracy" story is driven by the fact that manufacturers have no real incentive to switch to binary prefixes, because that would make their drives look "smaller". Do you want the 300 gigabyte drive or the 279.4 gibibyte drive? Aside from the fact that hardly anyone knows that a gibibyte is, in the absence of any more information the larger number is probably better. Even worse, if you created a 300 gibibyte drive to compete with the 300 gigabyte drive, consumers would probably not realise that the 300 gibibyte drive is bigger. It's not exactly a conspiracy, but it is a suboptimal arrangement that results from the manufacturers' incentives.