-3

Recently i installed timeshift for backup system recovery....it ate up half of the drive and i decided to uninstall timeshift.... and i decided to clean up the system as well by referring to some sites.... after a full cleaning i checked the gparted application for free space details... it showed me 65.7 GB FREE... BUT THE ORIGINAL SPACE I ALLOCATED WAS 70 GB for home folder.... where is that remaining 4.3 gigs of space?? i checked all folders but there is no additional file.... how come it occupied 4.3 gigs of space without my concent, is that a virus in my pc, i recently checked web about the ubuntu system installation files which are installed only in /(root) folder.....

4
  • Perhaps the difference is due to rounding. Sometimes, they define a kb as 1,000 bytes; other times, it is 1,024 bytes. When you multiply it out, it makes a difference. I think if you look at a HDD box, you will notice (well, at least the boxes I've seen) that they use 1,000 bytes. If Ubuntu uses 1,024 bytes (and it usually does), you see a big difference. i.e. A HDD with 14 TB on the box actually has 12 TB when it's read by Ubuntu. This happened to me recently...
    – Ray
    Feb 9, 2021 at 16:02
  • OH I SEE.... Is that a bug, is there a way i can fix it???? If so thanks in advance Feb 9, 2021 at 17:05
  • See askubuntu.com/questions/19504/… for another way disk space may become unavailable to you.The system reserves some (5% default) for itself.
    – ubfan1
    Feb 9, 2021 at 17:46
  • You can also look at this article on Wikipedia for a detailed explanation. The section "Inconsistent use of units" is quite well written. But as @ubfan1 says, the system may also reserve space. Either way, there's no way to "get more space", so I wouldn't dwell on it for too long.
    – Ray
    Feb 10, 2021 at 4:01

1 Answer 1

1

Calculate Hard Drive Size in Bytes Two different mathematical systems are used to define how much information can be stored on the hard disk drive of your computer: binary or base-2 mathematics and base-10 mathematics.

  • In the binary or base-2 system used by the operating system, 1 gigabyte (GB) is equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes.
  • In the base-10 system used by hard disk drive manufacturers, 1 gigabyte (GB) is equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes (rather than the 1,073,741,824 bytes, as listed above).

This discrepancy in reporting drive sizes (base-2 vs. base-10) may lead you to believe that you have a hard disk drive of less than expected capacity if you compare the figure reported by the operating system with the figure reported by your documentation, although the actual hard drive size is identical.

These two mathematical systems produce 2 different numbers but actually the stored space reported by each of them is the same.

If you have noticed this discrepancy, refer to the table below.
BASE-10 BASE-2
36GB 34.3GB
40GB 38.1GB
73GB 69.6GB
80GB 76.3GB
100GB 95.4GB

4
  • Base 2 is usually GiB and base 10 is GB. OSs usually use base 2/ GiB units, but not always. Can be confusing.
    – crip659
    Feb 9, 2021 at 16:37
  • Oh thanks for the detailed information....... if that is so, how can i fix it to have a maximum usage??? is there any way that u can acknowledge me as it is much appreciated........ Feb 9, 2021 at 17:03
  • 1
    this is actually a kind of trick of disc producers. the operating system is already using the disk at maximum width. You don't need to do anything.
    – Ramazan Oz
    Feb 9, 2021 at 17:17
  • oh oh ohhh... is it so.... Feb 10, 2021 at 14:01

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .