1.0 GB PSP mem stick screw up!?

[Zale]

just a quick question for you guys out there with a 1 GB mem stick. I formated the memory and browsed the stick on my computer to make sure that there was no data on it. Yet, the psp says that there is only 949 MBs avalible on it. But 1 GB is 1024 MBs. I doubt that the partition information on the memory stick takes up 75 MBs so where in the hell are the other 75 MBs??? Somebody please let me know if all the 1 GB memory sticks are like that or if I should exchange it for a new one.

[Omatic]

I have the same deal. Apparently some drivers are needed for the other 75, or some other strange explination. All I know is that all the 1 giggies are like that.

EDIT: Ignore me, see below.

[Odie]

Apparently some drivers are needed for the other 75, or some other strange explination.

lol, please tell me you were being sarcastic?

The explanation is fairly simple, hard drive and flash memory manufacturers all misrepresent the capacity of their devices. Where most people know a gigabyte is 1024 MB, and a MB is 1024 KB....and so on, the storage manufacturers use 1000. So they classify a gigabyte as 1000,000,000 bytes.... the problem being that pretty much all operating systems and devices use 1024 to report filesizes.

A quick calculation shows that the '75MB' never existed:

1000,000,000 / 1024 = 976562.5 KB

976562.5 / 1024 = 953.67431640625 MB

from there, it's not much of a stretch to see that the remaining 4MB is either due to the card being slightly less than 1000,000,000 bytes and/or the file allocation table when it's formatted.

Some cards have a few more MB of formatted capacity than others, but we're usually only talking about 2 or 3 MB.

I hope this has answered your question.

Moderators: this question seems to come up quite often, so feel free to sticky this thread.

- Odie

[Omatic]

Nah, I wasn't being sarcastic, I was being wrong. I try not to be sarcastic without it being blaringly obvious.

That wasn't blaringly obvious.

[Makenshi]

I called scandisk about my 512 and asked them why it dont say 512.. It shows theres less than 512.. They said it was cause there was hidden software on the card for the card to function correctly on the psp.

[Odie]

Makenshi: If that's what they told you then they blatantly lied.

[grabnak]

I called scandisk about my 512 and asked them why it dont say 512.. It shows theres less than 512.. They said it was cause there was hidden software on the card for the card to function correctly on the psp.

Lol@Sandisk, I guess some of you have never installed a hard drive (ie 80GB shows up in windows as like 74 GB) in a computer. It is actually pretty shady, especially when you get up in the GB range (flash media or hard drive).

[Zale1]

Just wanted to thank Odie for his response. I've heard of manufacturers doing that with there hard drives as well. Your a smart one, thanks for the quick response. Apparently this site doesn't like my old name/password so I had to make a new one...

[Psychondrius]

Odie is right. If you got your memory stick from sandisk, it says right on the box in fine print. Sandisk measures the 1 gig stick by 1GB = 1,000,000kb (976.56MB) and not 1024MB. That's pretty gay right there. I read the fine print on the back of mine, and I have to admit I was pretty bummed afterwards. If they are so smart in making technology, then why don't they get their facts straight?