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Groups > linux.debian.user > #275930 > unrolled thread

new computer arriving soon

Started by"Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com>
First post2024-12-21 18:50 +0100
Last post2024-12-22 17:20 +0100
Articles 20 on this page of 132 — 31 participants

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  new computer arriving soon "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2024-12-21 18:50 +0100
    Re: new computer arriving soon "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2024-12-21 20:30 +0100
      Re: new computer arriving soon Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2024-12-21 21:20 +0100
        Re: new computer arriving soon "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2024-12-22 02:20 +0100
      Re: new computer arriving soon "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2024-12-22 02:20 +0100
        UEFI, Export from Virtualbox [WAS Re: new computer arriving soon] "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2024-12-22 09:50 +0100
        Re: new computer arriving soon "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2024-12-26 20:40 +0100
          Re: new computer arriving soon David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2024-12-26 23:40 +0100
            Re: new computer arriving soon David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2024-12-27 17:30 +0100
              Re: new computer arriving soon Marc Shapiro <marcnshap@gmail.com> - 2024-12-31 05:10 +0100
                Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2024-12-31 05:40 +0100
                  Re: new computer arriving soon "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2024-12-31 19:00 +0100
                    Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2024-12-31 23:00 +0100
                      Re: new computer arriving soon "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2025-01-01 00:00 +0100
                        Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-01 01:00 +0100
                          Re: new computer arriving soon pocket@homemail.com - 2025-01-01 15:00 +0100
                            Re: new computer arriving soon Frank Guthausen <fg.debian@shimps.de> - 2025-01-01 15:30 +0100
                              Re: new computer arriving soon pocket@homemail.com - 2025-01-01 15:40 +0100
                                Re: new computer arriving soon Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-01 16:40 +0100
                                  Re: new computer arriving soon pocket@homemail.com - 2025-01-01 17:20 +0100
                                    Re: new computer arriving soon Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-01 18:00 +0100
                                      Re: new computer arriving soon pocket@homemail.com - 2025-01-01 18:00 +0100
                                        Re: new computer arriving soon Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-02 03:10 +0100
                                          Re: new computer arriving soon pocket@homemail.com - 2025-01-02 03:40 +0100
                                  Re: new computer arriving soon Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2025-01-01 17:30 +0100
                                    Re: new computer arriving soon Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-01 18:20 +0100
                                      Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-01 22:00 +0100
                            Re: new computer arriving soon Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2025-01-01 19:50 +0100
                              Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-01 22:50 +0100
                                Re: new computer arriving soon Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2025-01-02 14:50 +0100
                                Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-03 04:00 +0100
                                  Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-03 17:30 +0100
                                Re: new computer arriving soon Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2025-01-03 13:10 +0100
                            Re: new computer arriving soon Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-02 03:30 +0100
                              Re: new computer arriving soon pocket@homemail.com - 2025-01-02 03:40 +0100
                                Re: new computer arriving soon Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-02 04:30 +0100
                                  Re: new computer arriving soon pocket@homemail.com - 2025-01-02 04:50 +0100
                                    Re: new computer arriving soon Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-02 16:40 +0100
                                      Re: new computer arriving soon pocket@homemail.com - 2025-01-02 17:10 +0100
                                        Re: new computer arriving soon Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-04 05:00 +0100
                                          Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-04 11:20 +0100
                                            Gene and networkmanager (was: Re: new computer arriving soon) Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-05 04:50 +0100
                                              Re: Gene and networkmanager (was: Re: new computer arriving soon) gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-05 17:20 +0100
                                            /dev/serial/by-id (was: Re: new computer arriving soon) Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-05 05:00 +0100
                                              Re: /dev/serial/by-id (was: Re: new computer arriving soon) gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-05 17:30 +0100
                                                Re: /dev/serial/by-id Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-06 03:30 +0100
                                                  Re: /dev/serial/by-id gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-06 08:20 +0100
                                                    Re: /dev/serial/by-id Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-07 04:20 +0100
                                                      Re: /dev/serial/by-id gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-07 10:00 +0100
                                                        Re: /dev/serial/by-id gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-07 14:50 +0100
                                                          Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2025-01-07 16:10 +0100
                                                            Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2025-01-07 16:50 +0100
                                                              Re: Mass storage sizes eben@gmx.us - 2025-01-07 17:10 +0100
                                                                Re: Mass storage sizes <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2025-01-07 17:40 +0100
                                                                  Re: Mass storage sizes eben@gmx.us - 2025-01-07 18:00 +0100
                                                                  Re: Mass storage sizes Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2025-01-07 20:40 +0100
                                                                    Re: Mass storage sizes <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2025-01-08 06:30 +0100
                                                              Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-07 17:10 +0100
                                                                Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-07 17:30 +0100
                                                                Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2025-01-07 18:10 +0100
                                                                  Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Nicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com> - 2025-01-09 04:10 +0100
                                                                    Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-09 05:50 +0100
                                                                      Re: Mass storage sizes Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2025-01-09 16:30 +0100
                                                                        Re: Mass storage sizes Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2025-01-09 18:10 +0100
                                                                        Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2025-01-09 21:50 +0100
                                                                          Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-10 00:50 +0100
                                                                            Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> - 2025-01-10 01:10 +0100
                                                                            Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Timothy M Butterworth <timothy.m.butterworth@gmail.com> - 2025-01-10 02:10 +0100
                                                                              Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2025-01-10 11:00 +0100
                                                                                Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-10 15:10 +0100
                                                                            Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2025-01-10 07:30 +0100
                                                                              Re: Mass storage sizes John Hasler <john@sugarbit.com> - 2025-01-10 15:50 +0100
                                                                                Re: Mass storage sizes eben@gmx.us - 2025-01-10 21:40 +0100
                                                                                  Re: Mass storage sizes gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-11 01:50 +0100
                                                                                Re: Mass storage sizes Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> - 2025-01-11 01:40 +0100
                                                                          Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Heriberto Avelino <heriberto.avelino@gmail.com> - 2025-01-10 01:30 +0100
                                                                Re: Mass storage sizes Kushal Kumaran <kushal@locationd.net> - 2025-01-07 20:20 +0100
                                                                  Re: Mass storage sizes Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2025-01-07 21:10 +0100
                                                                  Re: Mass storage sizes Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-07 23:10 +0100
                                                                    Re: Mass storage sizes Urs Thuermann <urs@isnogud.escape.de> - 2025-01-10 03:00 +0100
                                                                      Re: Mass storage sizes Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-10 05:30 +0100
                                                                        Re: Mass storage sizes Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2025-01-10 15:40 +0100
                                                                  Re: Mass storage sizes Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2025-01-07 23:10 +0100
                                                                    Re: Mass storage sizes gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-08 00:30 +0100
                                                              Re: Mass storage sizes "Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net> - 2025-01-07 17:40 +0100
                                                                Re: Mass storage sizes Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2025-01-07 20:30 +0100
                                                            Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id) Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> - 2025-01-09 08:40 +0100
                                                          Re: /dev/serial/by-id Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-08 04:00 +0100
                                                        Re: /dev/serial/by-id Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-08 04:10 +0100
                                              Re: /dev/serial/by-id Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@debian-user.mail.kapsi.fi> - 2025-01-07 11:20 +0100
                          Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new computer arriving  soon] "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2025-01-02 17:00 +0100
                            Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new computer  arrivingsoon] gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-02 23:10 +0100
                              Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new computer  arrivingsoon] Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2025-01-02 23:20 +0100
                                Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new computer  arrivingsoon] Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2025-01-02 23:30 +0100
                                  Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new computer  arrivingsoon] Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-03 00:10 +0100
                                Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new computer arrivingsoon] Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> - 2025-01-03 04:00 +0100
                                Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new  computerarrivingsoon] gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-03 05:00 +0100
                                  Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new  computerarrivingsoon] Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2025-01-03 14:00 +0100
                              Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new computer  arrivingsoon] Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-03 03:40 +0100
                                Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new  computerarrivingsoon] gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-03 05:10 +0100
                                  Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re: new  computerarrivingsoon] Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-04 04:30 +0100
                                    Re: Specific mdadm instructions for Gene [WAS Re:  newcomputerarrivingsoon] gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-04 04:50 +0100
                              sgdisk missing under Armbian for Gene [WAS Specific mdadm  instructions for Gene] "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2025-01-03 12:40 +0100
                                Re: sgdisk missing under Armbian for Gene [WAS Specific mdadm  instructions for Gene] Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2025-01-03 12:50 +0100
                                Re: sgdisk missing under Armbian for Gene [WAS Specific  mdadminstructions for Gene] gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-03 17:40 +0100
                    Re: new computer arriving soon Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-02 04:00 +0100
                      Re: new computer arriving soon gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2025-01-02 05:30 +0100
                        Re: new computer arriving soon George at Clug <Clug@goproject.info> - 2025-01-02 08:30 +0100
                          Re: new computer arriving soon Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-02 23:40 +0100
                            Re: new computer arriving soon fxkl47BF@protonmail.com - 2025-01-02 23:50 +0100
                              Re: new computer arriving soon George at Clug <Clug@goproject.info> - 2025-01-03 00:00 +0100
                                Re: new computer arriving soon Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-03 00:20 +0100
                                  Re: new computer arriving soon George at Clug <Clug@goproject.info> - 2025-01-03 00:50 +0100
                                    Re: new computer arriving soon "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2025-01-03 17:00 +0100
                                      Re: new computer arriving soon Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-03 17:20 +0100
                                      Re: new computer arriving soon David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2025-01-10 05:50 +0100
                              Re: new computer arriving soon Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2025-01-03 00:10 +0100
                            Re: new computer arriving soon George at Clug <Clug@goproject.info> - 2025-01-03 00:00 +0100
                          Re: new computer arriving soon Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-03 00:00 +0100
                            Re: new computer arriving soon  George at Clug <Clug@goproject.info> - 2025-01-03 00:40 +0100
                              Re: new computer arriving soon Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2025-01-03 00:50 +0100
                                Re: new computer arriving soon "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2025-01-03 17:00 +0100
                        Re: new computer arriving soon Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-02 16:30 +0100
                Re: new computer arriving soon Frank Guthausen <fg.debian@shimps.de> - 2024-12-31 20:20 +0100
                Re: new computer arriving soon Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-02 04:10 +0100
                  Re: new computer arriving soon Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2025-01-02 23:50 +0100
                  Re: new computer arriving soon Marc Shapiro <marcnshap@gmail.com> - 2025-01-06 06:10 +0100
            Re: new computer arriving soon "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2024-12-27 20:20 +0100
    Re: new computer arriving soon George at Clug <Clug@goproject.info> - 2024-12-22 00:40 +0100
      Re: new computer arriving soon "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2024-12-22 02:30 +0100
        Re: new computer arriving soon George at Clug <Clug@goproject.info> - 2024-12-22 05:50 +0100
    Re: new computer arriving soon songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2024-12-22 17:20 +0100

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#276424 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

FromNicholas Geovanis <nickgeovanis@gmail.com>
Date2025-01-09 04:10 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K2R5L-6Mzo-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276394

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Tue, Jan 7, 2025, 1:27 PM Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> wrote:

>
> > TB is about 10% larger. One of the worst crimes in computer history
> > was ever talking about storage in powers of 2, I really wish it would
> > just go away. It has properties that nobody wants and has been the
> > source of endless confusion, for really no benefits whatsoever.


This makes no sense. The number has the same value no matter which base is
chosen. These are integers, there is no fractional part, so there is no
"uncertainty" about its value. People who need to work with binary integers
usually choose to calculate with them in base 8 or base 16 then convert
them back to base 2. Which does not require calculation just copying.

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#276425 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

FromMichael Stone <mstone@debian.org>
Date2025-01-09 05:50 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K2SEx-6Nqh-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276424
On Wed, Jan 08, 2025 at 09:04:09PM -0600, Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
>    > TB is about 10% larger. One of the worst crimes in computer history
>    > was ever talking about storage in powers of 2, I really wish it would
>    > just go away. It has properties that nobody wants and has been the
>    > source of endless confusion, for really no benefits whatsoever.
>
>This makes no sense. The number has the same value no matter which base is
>chosen. These are integers, there is no fractional part, so there is no
>"uncertainty" about its value. People who need to work with binary integers
>usually choose to calculate with them in base 8 or base 16 then convert them
>back to base 2. Which does not require calculation just copying.

For example...let's take the 18000000000000B drive discussed earlier. 
That's 18TB or 16TiB. Annoying, but ok. Now that's also 18000MB but 
16763MiB. And it's 18000000MB or 17166137MiB. So if you have a display 
in MB and you want to know the value in TB you move the decimal 6 
places. But if you move the decimal 6 places to get from MiB to TiB you 
get...the wrong answer. Does this actually happen? Yes. All the freaking 
time. (A classic mashup is 1024k blocks expressed with power of 10 M and 
G.) Now this next part is important: no normal human working with 
files and disk space and trying to communicate with other normal humans 
calculates the values in base 8 or base 16. Communication of numbers 
between ordinary people generally happens in base 10. SI prefixes are 
base 10. And when you munge up some stupid base 2 units with what people 
want and expect to be base 10, mistakes and confusion happen. And the 
benefit of all that confusion and increased cognative load is: 
absolutely nothing.

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#276433 — Re: Mass storage sizes

FromStefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
Date2025-01-09 16:30 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K32DT-6VZ7-13@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276425
> For example...let's take the 18000000000000B drive discussed earlier. That's
> 18TB or 16TiB. Annoying, but ok. Now that's also 18000MB but 16763MiB. And
> it's 18000000MB or 17166137MiB. So if you have a display in MB and you want
> to know the value in TB you move the decimal 6 places. But if you move the
> decimal 6 places to get from MiB to TiB you get...the wrong answer. Does
> this actually happen? Yes. All the freaking time. (A classic mashup is 1024k
> blocks expressed with power of 10 M and G.)

🙂

A related problem is when writing code which displays such sizes in
a human readable way, for example a "speedometer" displaying the number
of bytes per second with a limited amount of space.  A common choice is
to use 3 chars for the number plus a unit, i.e. things like "254 kB/s"
or "1.5 MB/s".  Now, if you use the "1024" multiplier, you get a funny
quirk when the current speed is, say 1003 kB/s, because "1003 kB/s" uses
one char too many, yet we haven't reached "1.0 MB/s" either.


        Stefan

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#276434 — Re: Mass storage sizes

FromDan Purgert <dan@djph.net>
Date2025-01-09 18:10 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K34cF-6YxD-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276433

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Jan 09, 2025, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > For example...let's take the 18000000000000B drive discussed earlier. That's
> > 18TB or 16TiB. Annoying, but ok. Now that's also 18000MB but 16763MiB. And
> > it's 18000000MB or 17166137MiB. So if you have a display in MB and you want
> > to know the value in TB you move the decimal 6 places. But if you move the
> > decimal 6 places to get from MiB to TiB you get...the wrong answer. Does
> > this actually happen? Yes. All the freaking time. (A classic mashup is 1024k
> > blocks expressed with power of 10 M and G.)
> 
> 🙂
> 
> A related problem is when writing code which displays such sizes in
> a human readable way, for example a "speedometer" displaying the number
> of bytes per second with a limited amount of space.  A common choice is
> to use 3 chars for the number plus a unit, i.e. things like "254 kB/s"
> or "1.5 MB/s".  Now, if you use the "1024" multiplier, you get a funny
> quirk when the current speed is, say 1003 kB/s, because "1003 kB/s" uses
> one char too many, yet we haven't reached "1.0 MB/s" either.

Thankfully, networking stuck with base-10 numbers for bitrates.


-- 
|_|O|_| 
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: DDAB 23FB 19FA 7D85 1CC1  E067 6D65 70E5 4CE7 2860

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#276436 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

FromNicolas George <george@nsup.org>
Date2025-01-09 21:50 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K37Dz-75oL-9@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276433
Michael Stone (12025-01-08):
> For example...let's take the 18000000000000B drive discussed earlier. That's
> 18TB or 16TiB. Annoying, but ok. Now that's also 18000MB but 16763MiB. And
> it's 18000000MB or 17166137MiB. So if you have a display in MB and you want
> to know the value in TB you move the decimal 6 places. But if you move the
> decimal 6 places to get from MiB to TiB you get...the wrong answer. Does
> this actually happen? Yes. All the freaking time. (A classic mashup is 1024k
> blocks expressed with power of 10 M and G.) Now this next part is important:
> no normal human working with files and disk space and trying to communicate
> with other normal humans calculates the values in base 8 or base 16.
> Communication of numbers between ordinary people generally happens in base
> 10. SI prefixes are base 10. And when you munge up some stupid base 2 units
> with what people want and expect to be base 10, mistakes and confusion
> happen. And the benefit of all that confusion and increased cognative load
> is: absolutely nothing.

The thing is, for people who _expect_ rather than _know_ about this, 10%
accuracy is plenty enough. Especially since, as has been pointed, a lot
of factors will conspire to reduce the space available in practice.

For the people who need exact figures, on the other hand, binary units
are much more convenient, not just to measure the size of memory
modules: alignment requirements, maximum sizes of files and devices,
size of stripes, they are all based on powers of two.


Stefan Monnier (12025-01-09):
> A related problem is when writing code which displays such sizes in
> a human readable way, for example a "speedometer" displaying the number
> of bytes per second with a limited amount of space.  A common choice is
> to use 3 chars for the number plus a unit, i.e. things like "254 kB/s"
> or "1.5 MB/s".  Now, if you use the "1024" multiplier, you get a funny
> quirk when the current speed is, say 1003 kB/s, because "1003 kB/s" uses
> one char too many, yet we haven't reached "1.0 MB/s" either.

Well, “1.5” is too few significant digits in the first place.

So, you start:

 100 M
 999 M
1000 M
1024 M
1.59 G
9.99 G
10.0 G
99.9 G
 100 G
 999 G
1000 G

The switch to the next prefix does not have to be as soon as the
mantissa is greater than one. Notice that the heights of mountains are
in meters, not in kilometers, even for the Himalaya. It is better to go
to 9999 M and only then switch to 9.77 G: more significant digits, not
less readable.

(Also, the people who designed the symbols for the prefixes really
dropped the ball with k instead of K, but that predates memory units by
a long time.)

-- 
  Nicolas George

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#276437 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

FromMichael Stone <mstone@debian.org>
Date2025-01-10 00:50 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K3arL-79TY-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276436
On Thu, Jan 09, 2025 at 09:47:11PM +0100, Nicolas George wrote:
>For the people who need exact figures, on the other hand, binary units
>are much more convenient, not just to measure the size of memory
>modules: alignment requirements, maximum sizes of files and devices,
>size of stripes, they are all based on powers of two.

Baloney. People who need to worry about those things are/should be doing 
that programatically and absolutely do not "need" GiB for anything at 
all, certainly not for display. For everyone else, basically all the 
time and in every situation, power of ten units make more sense. The 
entire computing world has been saddled with this "but a computer 
kilobyte is really" nonsense far too long, and it actively hurts UX for 
everyone other than the vanishingly small set of people who won't shut 
up about how important it is to keep that anachronism. 

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#276438 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

FromJeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com>
Date2025-01-10 01:10 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K3aL7-7aJ4-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276437
On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 09, 2025 at 09:47:11PM +0100, Nicolas George wrote:
> >For the people who need exact figures, on the other hand, binary units
> >are much more convenient, not just to measure the size of memory
> >modules: alignment requirements, maximum sizes of files and devices,
> >size of stripes, they are all based on powers of two.
>
> Baloney. People who need to worry about those things are/should be doing
> that programatically and absolutely do not "need" GiB for anything at
> all, certainly not for display. For everyone else, basically all the
> time and in every situation, power of ten units make more sense. The
> entire computing world has been saddled with this "but a computer
> kilobyte is really" nonsense far too long, and it actively hurts UX for
> everyone other than the vanishingly small set of people who won't shut
> up about how important it is to keep that anachronism.

Or it could be precision of terms. Powers of two precisely describes
the storage, sans what is held back for swapping bad sectors. I've
never seen powers of 10 marketing literature describe a drive as
465.661 GB (500 GiB). The marketing literature will round up, call it
GB, and then say actual size may be less than advertised.

Jeff

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#276441 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

FromTimothy M Butterworth <timothy.m.butterworth@gmail.com>
Date2025-01-10 02:10 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K3bHb-7cFX-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276437

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 09, 2025 at 09:47:11PM +0100, Nicolas George wrote:
> >For the people who need exact figures, on the other hand, binary units
> >are much more convenient, not just to measure the size of memory
> >modules: alignment requirements, maximum sizes of files and devices,
> >size of stripes, they are all based on powers of two.
>
> Baloney. People who need to worry about those things are/should be doing
> that programatically and absolutely do not "need" GiB for anything at
> all, certainly not for display. For everyone else, basically all the
> time and in every situation, power of ten units make more sense. The
> entire computing world has been saddled with this "but a computer
> kilobyte is really" nonsense far too long, and it actively hurts UX for
> everyone other than the vanishingly small set of people who won't shut
> up about how important it is to keep that anachronism.
>

It takes 8 bits to make one byte, should we change that to 10 too....

-- 
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org/
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀

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#276447 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

FromDan Purgert <dan@djph.net>
Date2025-01-10 11:00 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K3jY5-7tuQ-7@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276441

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Jan 09, 2025, Timothy M Butterworth wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Jan 09, 2025 at 09:47:11PM +0100, Nicolas George wrote:
> > >For the people who need exact figures, on the other hand, binary units
> > >are much more convenient, not just to measure the size of memory
> > >modules: alignment requirements, maximum sizes of files and devices,
> > >size of stripes, they are all based on powers of two.
> >
> > Baloney. People who need to worry about those things are/should be doing
> > that programatically and absolutely do not "need" GiB for anything at
> > all, certainly not for display. For everyone else, basically all the
> > time and in every situation, power of ten units make more sense. The
> > entire computing world has been saddled with this "but a computer
> > kilobyte is really" nonsense far too long, and it actively hurts UX for
> > everyone other than the vanishingly small set of people who won't shut
> > up about how important it is to keep that anachronism.
> >
> 
> It takes 8 bits to make one byte, should we change that to 10 too....

Please no, 8b10b encoding is hard enough. :)


-- 
|_|O|_| 
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: DDAB 23FB 19FA 7D85 1CC1  E067 6D65 70E5 4CE7 2860

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#276449 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

Fromgene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net>
Date2025-01-10 15:10 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K3nS2-7Bd5-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276447
On 1/10/25 04:50, Dan Purgert wrote:
> On Jan 09, 2025, Timothy M Butterworth wrote:
>> On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 09, 2025 at 09:47:11PM +0100, Nicolas George wrote:
>>>> For the people who need exact figures, on the other hand, binary units
>>>> are much more convenient, not just to measure the size of memory
>>>> modules: alignment requirements, maximum sizes of files and devices,
>>>> size of stripes, they are all based on powers of two.
>>> Baloney. People who need to worry about those things are/should be doing
>>> that programatically and absolutely do not "need" GiB for anything at
>>> all, certainly not for display. For everyone else, basically all the
>>> time and in every situation, power of ten units make more sense. The
>>> entire computing world has been saddled with this "but a computer
>>> kilobyte is really" nonsense far too long, and it actively hurts UX for
>>> everyone other than the vanishingly small set of people who won't shut
>>> up about how important it is to keep that anachronism.
>>>
>> It takes 8 bits to make one byte, should we change that to 10 too....
> Please no, 8b10b encoding is hard enough. :)
Wider bytes were tried early on, flopped. I was once gifted a thing made 
by NCR in 1985 whose cpu , about 18" square was all TTL stuff. Stripped 
of memory, I recall its byte was 12 bits. Now of course memory bandwidth 
is obtained by 128 bit wide busses with 256 in the higher end servers.  
Useless to me, I built a ups for my full house Amiga 2000 out of 
motorcycle batteries in its box. That, like the Amiga eventually was, 
was a failure. Another time and place.
>
>
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis

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#276446 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

From<tomas@tuxteam.de>
Date2025-01-10 07:30 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K3gGR-7nkJ-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276437

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Thu, Jan 09, 2025 at 06:44:30PM -0500, Michael Stone wrote:

[...]

> Baloney [...]

"Baloney" == "things I don't like"

(FWIW I'd prefer binaries in the computer context, but hey).

Human communication is messy. Both multipliers come from different
sources which were well established at the moment they "clashed".

Heck, the "disk people" themselves are schizophrenic, since they
bunch their blocks in binary too (512, 4k -- uh 4kiB), rumours
have it that SSD erase blocks are also powers-of-two sized. So...

The best we can do at the moment is to use the iB suffix in cases
where the context doesn't help enough (in most cases it does: human
language is like that).

Past experience shows that we'll live with this for a while (watch
the US still on their Imperial measures, while the UK has, mostly,
switched to metrics -- oh, the irony).

One rant is OK, but repeatedly whining about it just will annoy
people :)

Cheers
-- 
t

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#276451 — Re: Mass storage sizes

FromJohn Hasler <john@sugarbit.com>
Date2025-01-10 15:50 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K3ouK-7Cnn-17@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276446
Tomas writes:
> Past experience shows that we'll live with this for a while (watch
> the US still on their Imperial measures,

Pedanticism: The US is not and never has been on the Imperial system.
We use both SI ("metric") and US Customary (the latter predates
Imperial).
-- 
John Hasler 
john@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA

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#276453 — Re: Mass storage sizes

Fromeben@gmx.us
Date2025-01-10 21:40 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K3tXs-7LJd-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276451
On 1/10/25 15:30, mick.crane wrote:
> On 2025-01-10 14:39, John Hasler wrote:
>> Tomas writes:
>>> Past experience shows that we'll live with this for a while (watch
>>> the US still on their Imperial measures,
>>
>> Pedanticism: The US is not and never has been on the Imperial system.
>> We use both SI ("metric") and US Customary (the latter predates
>> Imperial).
> wasn't a defect in the Hubble telescope mirror caused by a misunderstanding
> between US/UK what units they were working in?

I'd heard it was a failure to account for the effects of non-gravity on the
main mirror.  The Mars Climate Observer was doomed by one team using
imperial instead of metric, and applying the wrong impulse because of it.


--
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another:
        "What!  You too?  I thought I was the only one."
                -- C. S. Lewis

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#276455 — Re: Mass storage sizes

Fromgene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net>
Date2025-01-11 01:50 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K3xRn-7O6x-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276453
On 1/10/25 15:40, eben@gmx.us wrote:
> On 1/10/25 15:30, mick.crane wrote:
>> On 2025-01-10 14:39, John Hasler wrote:
>>> Tomas writes:
>>>> Past experience shows that we'll live with this for a while (watch
>>>> the US still on their Imperial measures,
>>> Pedanticism: The US is not and never has been on the Imperial system.
>>> We use both SI ("metric") and US Customary (the latter predates
>>> Imperial).
>> wasn't a defect in the Hubble telescope mirror caused by a misunderstanding
>> between US/UK what units they were working in?
> I'd heard it was a failure to account for the effects of non-gravity on the
> main mirror.  The Mars Climate Observer was doomed by one team using
> imperial instead of metric, and applying the wrong impulse because of it.
That is not what they told us on this side of the pond, it was an error, 
less than a human hair in the parabola they polished it to. So they 
designed an eye piece of sorts to correct it. Likely at the expense of 
some wide field loss. But we've sure gotten our moneys worth since. That 
is the last thing this planet has put up that sees visible light. And 
now with the shuttle shut down, its low orbit will eventually bring it 
down. The shuttle has been used to give it an orbit raising gentle push 
at least once but now the giro's are wearing out. They aim it.
> --
> Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another:
>          "What!  You too?  I thought I was the only one."
>                  -- C. S. Lewis
>
> .

Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis

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#276454 — Re: Mass storage sizes

FromJeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com>
Date2025-01-11 01:40 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K3xHH-7O2O-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276451
On Fri, Jan 10, 2025 at 5:57 PM mick.crane <mick.crane@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2025-01-10 14:39, John Hasler wrote:
> > Tomas writes:
> >> Past experience shows that we'll live with this for a while (watch
> >> the US still on their Imperial measures,
> >
> > Pedanticism: The US is not and never has been on the Imperial system.
> > We use both SI ("metric") and US Customary (the latter predates
> > Imperial).
> wasn't a defect in the Hubble telescope mirror caused by a
> misunderstanding between US/UK what units they were working in?

Also see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider>. The plane took
off with too little fuel due to a conversion error. The error was
introduced using a value converted from pounds/litre instead of
kilograms/litre.

I also seem to recall Airbus had a problem with engine wiring
harnesses due to conversions and rounding errors, but I can't find a
reference.

Jeff

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#276439 — Re: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)

FromHeriberto Avelino <heriberto.avelino@gmail.com>
Date2025-01-10 01:30 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes (was: /dev/serial/by-id)
Message-ID<K3b4t-7bhM-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276436

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

I agree it is important, may be a precision on the more general idea is
helpful:
"Communication of numbers between ordinary people generally happens in base
10."
It turns out that the diversity of the notion of numerosity among  *homo
sapiens* is way far richer than the base-10. See
https://wals.info/chapter/131

Indeed, humans have developed base-8 counting systems.

Avelino, Heriberto (2006). "The typology of Pame number systems and the
limits of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area"
<http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~avelino/Avelino_2006.pdf> (PDF). *Linguistic
Typology*. *10* (1): 41–60. doi
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doi_(identifier)>:10.1515/LINGTY.2006.002
<https://doi.org/10.1515%2FLINGTY.2006.002>

On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 2:47 PM Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> wrote:

> Michael Stone (12025-01-08):
> > For example...let's take the 18000000000000B drive discussed earlier.
> That's
> > 18TB or 16TiB. Annoying, but ok. Now that's also 18000MB but 16763MiB.
> And
> > it's 18000000MB or 17166137MiB. So if you have a display in MB and you
> want
> > to know the value in TB you move the decimal 6 places. But if you move
> the
> > decimal 6 places to get from MiB to TiB you get...the wrong answer. Does
> > this actually happen? Yes. All the freaking time. (A classic mashup is
> 1024k
> > blocks expressed with power of 10 M and G.) Now this next part is
> important:
> > no normal human working with files and disk space and trying to
> communicate
> > with other normal humans calculates the values in base 8 or base 16.
> > Communication of numbers between ordinary people generally happens in
> base
> > 10. SI prefixes are base 10. And when you munge up some stupid base 2
> units
> > with what people want and expect to be base 10, mistakes and confusion
> > happen. And the benefit of all that confusion and increased cognative
> load
> > is: absolutely nothing.
>
> The thing is, for people who _expect_ rather than _know_ about this, 10%
> accuracy is plenty enough. Especially since, as has been pointed, a lot
> of factors will conspire to reduce the space available in practice.
>
> For the people who need exact figures, on the other hand, binary units
> are much more convenient, not just to measure the size of memory
> modules: alignment requirements, maximum sizes of files and devices,
> size of stripes, they are all based on powers of two.
>
>
> Stefan Monnier (12025-01-09):
> > A related problem is when writing code which displays such sizes in
> > a human readable way, for example a "speedometer" displaying the number
> > of bytes per second with a limited amount of space.  A common choice is
> > to use 3 chars for the number plus a unit, i.e. things like "254 kB/s"
> > or "1.5 MB/s".  Now, if you use the "1024" multiplier, you get a funny
> > quirk when the current speed is, say 1003 kB/s, because "1003 kB/s" uses
> > one char too many, yet we haven't reached "1.0 MB/s" either.
>
> Well, “1.5” is too few significant digits in the first place.
>
> So, you start:
>
>  100 M
>  999 M
> 1000 M
> 1024 M
> 1.59 G
> 9.99 G
> 10.0 G
> 99.9 G
>  100 G
>  999 G
> 1000 G
>
> The switch to the next prefix does not have to be as soon as the
> mantissa is greater than one. Notice that the heights of mountains are
> in meters, not in kilometers, even for the Himalaya. It is better to go
> to 9999 M and only then switch to 9.77 G: more significant digits, not
> less readable.
>
> (Also, the people who designed the symbols for the prefixes really
> dropped the ball with k instead of K, but that predates memory units by
> a long time.)
>
> --
>   Nicolas George
>
>

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#276395 — Re: Mass storage sizes

FromKushal Kumaran <kushal@locationd.net>
Date2025-01-07 20:20 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K2nhn-6tz5-5@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276388
On Tue, Jan 07 2025 at 11:05:11 AM, Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 07, 2025 at 10:44:00AM -0500, Dan Purgert wrote:
>>On Jan 07, 2025, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>>> > 8 TB is not that big. I have a external 18 TB drive. It is 18 TB in name
>>> > only though! After fromating it with ext4 it only had 15TB of usuable
>>> > space.
>>>
>>> 18TB "on paper" is usually 18 * 1000^4 bytes, so if you convert this
>>> into "computer units" is ~16.37 * 1024^4 bytes.  If you then make an
>>> ext4 filesystem on it with the customary 5% reserved for root, that gets
>>> you down to 15.5TB, to which you also have to remove the space used by
>>> inodes, so yes, probably about 15TB and of course, once you start
>>> putting actual files ion the drive, additional space will be used by
>>> directories and metadata.
>>
>>Now now, let's not derail a rant with facts :)
>>
>>That being said, I thought the variance from TB -> TiB was 10%; or have
>>I gotten it backwards?
>
> TB is about 10% larger. One of the worst crimes in computer history
> was ever talking about storage in powers of 2, I really wish it would
> just go away. It has properties that nobody wants and has been the
> source of endless confusion, for really no benefits whatsoever.

I point people to http://www.tarsnap.com/GB-why.html which is where I
was first enlightened.

-- 
regards,
kushal

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#276398 — Re: Mass storage sizes

FromNicolas George <george@nsup.org>
Date2025-01-07 21:10 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K2o3L-6u9j-5@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276395
Kushal Kumaran (12025-01-07):
> I point people to http://www.tarsnap.com/GB-why.html which is where I
> was first enlightened.

Mostly something anybody should learn in junior high school physics,
freshman high-school at worst.

Except for one point: “this is a special case”. Except they are wrong
about where the special case: it would be absurd for the same unit to
mean something different depending on what it measures, so if you accept
that one giga-octet of RAM is 1024^3 octets, you have to accept it
everywhere of be ridiculously inconsistent with bad practical
consequences.

-- 
  Nicolas George

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#276407 — Re: Mass storage sizes

FromMichael Stone <mstone@debian.org>
Date2025-01-07 23:10 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K2pVU-6vir-9@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276395
On Tue, Jan 07, 2025 at 02:59:47PM -0700, Charles Curley wrote:
>Mr. Tarsnap forgets something. The reason disks are addressed in powers
>of two has to do with mathematics. Every hard and floppy disk out there
>has flaws. To get around that, data is divided into sectors, and
>checksums calculated. Done right, this allows for error correction for
>small flaws. The math works out better if you do it in chunks that are
>integer powers of two. So floppy disks have sectors of 256 octets, and
>their attendant checksums. Modern hard drives schlep data in chunks of
>4096 (2^12) octets. And bytes these days are eight bits.

The thing is, nobody cares about all that. It's an implementation detail 
that matters not to any normal person. Normal people care about things 
like "when I just look at the first couple of numbers of the size in 
bytes, is it the same thing as the size in <insert large unit> or do I 
need to do a bunch of math to answer a simple question?"

>GB or GiB? I don't care, just be clear which one you are using.

Which nobody is. The right answer is to stop using power of two units 
because they are pointless.

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#276442 — Re: Mass storage sizes

FromUrs Thuermann <urs@isnogud.escape.de>
Date2025-01-10 03:00 +0100
SubjectRe: Mass storage sizes
Message-ID<K3ctz-7e56-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
In reply to#276407
Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 07, 2025 at 02:59:47PM -0700, Charles Curley wrote:
> >Mr. Tarsnap forgets something. The reason disks are addressed in powers
> >of two has to do with mathematics. Every hard and floppy disk out there
> >has flaws. To get around that, data is divided into sectors, and
> >checksums calculated. Done right, this allows for error correction for
> >small flaws. The math works out better if you do it in chunks that are
> >integer powers of two. So floppy disks have sectors of 256 octets, and
> >their attendant checksums. Modern hard drives schlep data in chunks of
> >4096 (2^12) octets. And bytes these days are eight bits.
> 
> The thing is, nobody cares about all that. It's an implementation
> detail that matters not to any normal person. Normal people care about
> things like "when I just look at the first couple of numbers of the
> size in bytes, is it the same thing as the size in <insert large unit>
> or do I need to do a bunch of math to answer a simple question?"
> 
> >GB or GiB? I don't care, just be clear which one you are using.
> 
> Which nobody is. The right answer is to stop using power of two units
> because they are pointless.

No matter how often you repeat this, it's still wrong.  Using power of
two units is quite useful.  For example, my computers had 5.12 kB,
65.356 kB, 16.777216 MB, 67.108864 MB, 268.435456 MB, 1.073741824 GB,
and 8.589934592 GB of RAM.  Perfectly correct, but I prefer to say
they had 5 kiB, 64 kiB, 16 MiB, 64 MiB, 256 MiB, 1 GiB, and 8 GiB of
RAM.  Because of technical reasons, rows and columns with m RAS and n
CAS select lines, sizes of RAM chips are almost always 2**m * 2**n
bytes, i.e. powers of 2.  RAM modules for the RAM slots of your
mainboard also are sized in powers of 2, because otherwise it would be
extremely hard to decode a memory address from the CPU into module
slot number and offset inside the module.

Block devices like floppy disks, hard disks, SSDs, etc. also have
block sizes which are powers of 2, like 256, 512, and 4096 bytes.
This is not because of checksumming as was suggested in this thread,
but because it makes it easier (e.g. for DMA controllers) to copy
from/to pages of RAM.

Therefore, my floppy disks had exacty 170.75 kiB, 720 kiB, and 1.44
MiB --- or as you would like to put it --- 174.848 kB, 737.280 kB, and
1.47456 MB.  So again: Are kiB, MiB, GiB, and TiB really pointless?

This is not really confusing, except for people who are too dumb to
understand units and their conversions.  Granted, some confusion came
from using k, M, G for the power-of-2 based units.  Back in the days
when we had only kilobytes this didn't matter too much since 2**10 is
so close to 1000 (only 2.4% more) that it was just practical to use
uppercase K to mean "a little more than k", i.e. 2**10, but still
speak of kilobytes.  When we reached sizes of megabytes, we couldn't
use a "larger than M letter", so M was simply used for both, 10**6 and
2**20, but it was usually clear from the context, what was meant.
Some confusion started, when some marketing people switched from using
the then common binary units to using decimal units because it made
their drives look larger than the competitor's drives.

Only much much later someone invented the ki, Mi, Gi, ... prefixes
to fix this and which I think helped a lot.  Only, when talking I
never hear anyone saying kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi. so you still need to
take the context into account to understand.

urs

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