Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!princeton!udel!wuarchive!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!Bob_BobR_Retelle
From: Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Unformatted vs. Formatted capacity
Message-ID: <36113@cup.portal.com>
Date: 21 Nov 90 04:16:46 GMT
References: <1990Nov20.201159.17450@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1013@demott.COM>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 14

Unformatted capacity of a disk is a measure of the raw information storage
ability of the media.  Number of tracks times number of sectors per track
times bytes per sector equals unformatted capacity.
 
Formatted capacity of a disk is the available data storage regions AFTER
such "overhead" areas as sync bytes, track header bytes, sector header and
intersector gaps, FAT tables, directories, and boot sectors have been written
to the disk.
 
This is why there's usually quite a difference between the "unformatted"
and "formatted" capacity figures.  The difference can be quite striking on
a very high capacity hard drive for instance...
 
BobR