Big bonus on hard drive

[TheForce]

Just bought a WD external hard drive that was on sale for $99 at Staples. When I got to the counter the sales geek tried very hard to talk me out of it stating the drive was defective, didn't work, his boss tried one, is an expert on computers and had to return it, yada yada... I got the last one on the shelf. It looked like a great deal for a 320G drive. I get home and everything on it says a 320 but when I hooked it up it gave me 485G! It was preformatted for FAT32 so I reformatted it for NTFS and still got the same capacity. It's been working great here all day! Using it to capture video files and sneaker net them to my assistant in another room for editing.

 

[qwert1515]

That sounds like a good deal, my 500 GB HD give me only 465 GB formated with NTFS

 

[jcrandall]

If the sales guy was tryingto talk you out of it, he was probally suprised with the price and wanted it for himself...
Getting a larger size drive is unusual, did the model number on drive match the box? Keep an eye on it to make sure you can get more than the 320gb on there and don't lose anything.

 

[diogen]

I get home and everything on it says a 320 but when I hooked it up it gave me 485G!

This is a strange number.
Hard drive manufacturers use 1GB=1,000,0000,000 byte
PC reports 1GB=1024*1024*1024=1,073,741,824 byte
Therefore, if WD says it is 320GB the PC should report 320/1.074=298GB
If it reports 485GB, in WD terms it must be a 485*1.074=520GB drive.
Very strange size...

It was preformatted for FAT32 so I reformatted it for NTFS and still got the same capacity.

This is strange, too.
FAT32 will use the same cluster size as NTFS (4kB) only on volumes lower than 8GB. When formatting a 300-500GB drives it will use 16kB clusters.
That means the size of the hard drive as reported by the PC should be different when formatted using FAT32 and NTFS.

Diogen.

 

[TheForce]

Sorry tech geeks- It is 465, not 485! was my typo.

I've filled it out already and it does hold over 400 G. It is a different model drive in the box. This was a FSC box too.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Sounds like a good deal Don!

 

[Derwin0]

If the sales guy was tryingto talk you out of it, he was probally suprised with the price and wanted it for himself...

He had probably swapped the drive in the box with a 500GB so he could buy it himself at the end of the shift at the lower 320GB price.

You just happened to pick it up before he could embezzle it.

 

[jcrandall]

that's the kind of thinking that just makes us retail managers cringe.

Ugh!

 

[TheForce]

Yeah I thought something smelled fishy on this so with their return policy, I thought I'd take it anyway. The box was FSC so I doubt the employee had done a switch. What I think happened is they got others in where a mfg error in packaging happened and the one I got was the last one there. This is the first time a Staples employee ever tried real hard to convince me a product they were selling was no good and I shouldn't buy it. He was also new as I have been shopping there for years.

 

[Ronald_Jeremy]

Less likely a mfg error. They were probably running short on the smaller drives. The cost difference is very little. So they stuck the larger drive in the box as a sub. Happens all of the time.

 

[mike123abc]

I have bought drives before in retail packaging and opened them up and there were notes inside saying they have included a larger hard drive as a bonus. It is probably cheaper to just substitute larger drives than have a manufacturing run to make more of the smaller ones to fill an order.

 

[thiggin2]

I have bought drives before in retail packaging and opened them up and there were notes inside saying they have included a larger hard drive as a bonus. It is probably cheaper to just substitute larger drives than have a manufacturing run to make more of the smaller ones to fill an order.

I was thinking the same thing. I remember years ago buying a 20 gig WD from Bestbuy and it had a 30 gig inside. It also had a note stating the bonus.

 

[Smith P.]

Fry's have PATA/SATA 500 GB for the money.

 

[TheForce]

Less likely a mfg error. They were probably running short on the smaller drives. The cost difference is very little. So they stuck the larger drive in the box as a sub. Happens all of the time.

Never heard of that before. I have heard of the "Bonus" capacity of a small amount of capacity but not like this. They always have the sticker on the outside of the box to advertise the bonus capacity.

 

[Smith P.]

So, Don - will you post that HDD info from your BIOS screen ?

 

[Foxbat]

Never heard of that before. I have heard of the "Bonus" capacity of a small amount of capacity but not like this. They always have the sticker on the outside of the box to advertise the bonus capacity.

I have a box right here from a 100GB Maxtor that has a "Bonus 20GB" sticker on it. Can't say if Western Digital does the same.

I'm leaning towards the "500 GB" drive in a "320 GB" box and shrink-wrapped in back for the "Special" Employee Discount. It should be easy enough to check: Does the serial number and model number on the box match the drive you have?

 

[Smith P.]

Don, what written on the label and what BIOS reported ?

 

[Derwin0]

I'm leaning towards the "500 GB" drive in a "320 GB" box and shrink-wrapped in back for the "Special" Employee Discount. It should be easy enough to check: Does the serial number and model number on the box match the drive you have?

I think it's that way too.
If it wasn't for the employee insisting the drive was crap, then I would have gone with manufacturer's bonus, but since he was so insistent, then I'm going with the above.

 

[Smith P.]

Don ?!

 

[John Kotches]

This is a strange number.
Hard drive manufacturers use 1GB=1,000,0000,000 byte
PC reports 1GB=1024*1024*1024=1,073,741,824 byte
Therefore, if WD says it is 320GB the PC should report 320/1.074=298GB
If it reports 485GB, in WD terms it must be a 485*1.074=520GB drive.
Very strange size...
This is strange, too.
FAT32 will use the same cluster size as NTFS (4kB) only on volumes lower than 8GB. When formatting a 300-500GB drives it will use 16kB clusters.
That means the size of the hard drive as reported by the PC should be different when formatted using FAT32 and NTFS.

Diogen.

Don't forget that the drive size reported == usable space, not raw space so formatting overhead is lost as well.