It has been common amongst academic Computer Science folks -- especially
in Europe, I think -- to refer to both as "storage", sometimes
differentiating between "primary storage" (memory, RAM) and "secondary
storage" (file system, page file, resident on a device from which it
must be copied into memory to be used).
  I'm not sure that this usage has become common amongst end users on
either side of the Atlantic.

  There is also the issue that storage sizes quoted by drive
manufacturers tend to be decimal (mega = 10^9,
giga = 10^12) while those reported by the OS tend to be binary
(mega=2^20, giga=2^30) and system manufacturers might use either.  The
same drive or file will sound a bit bigger n the decimal units than in
binary, and so it may be that the claimed size of the drive when the
system was sold is bigger than the actual size reported by the OS.

David Gillett


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Fwd: where is all my memory? - Please submit
this hardware question to PCBUILD
From: DENISE ROCHE <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, August 17, 2010 6:52 pm
To: [log in to unmask]

Not to be picky or anything, but memory is RAM, what you are talking
about is hard drive space (storage). It wouldn't matter, except that you
are likely to run into trouble looking for information online unless you
clarify what you mean. When you search, search for information on hard
drive space, not memory.


Time to introduce a lovely concept called "slack." Your hard disk is
broken into evenly sized pieces called clusters, much like the
pigeonholes on an old secretary's desk. Each file is allocated to one or
more of these clusters, and no two files can share a cluster. If the
file doesn't use the whole cluster, the rest goes to waste. That is
"slack." A 1 KB file or a 4 KB file eats the same 4 KB cluster on the
disk. That is why you will see two figures for a file's size in the
properties box. The first is the actual size of the file. The second is
its size on disk, counting any leftover slack. Hope that helps to
clarify your hard disk figures a little. There are several third party
tools out there that can help you visualize how your hard disk is being
used, though I don't remember the names off the top of my head. A quick
Google search should help, along with my friendly colleagues on here.
Hope this helps out. :)


> Running Vista service pack 2 on a HP pavilion that is only a year old. Under properties of C drive it says 133G free of 285 GB and recovery D has 1.97 GB free of 12.4GB. If you open C all the folders don't add up to anywhere near 152GB. I have seen a link long ago to a web site with a pie chart sort of utility that shows where all the memory is being used. Does anyone remember where or what that is? Or any other suggestions where all my memory is going? There is just normal pictures and files on the computer it isn't used for huge video or anything. Thanks in advance. Kathy
> 

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