Formated PSP Memory stick!

[rocker935]

OK a while back i bought my 512mb memory stick. It works fine and all. Except it drive me crazy about how much space i lose after formating the memory stick. Is there a way that i can format my memory stick without having to lose so much space. I mean come on, i lose about 50 mb.

[Jieri]

LOL You serious? I lose no space when I format mines.

[rocker935]

yeah after i format mine i come out with about 450mb left. What firmware do u have?

[krazylilroker777]

thats normal , the gigs are suppose to be 1024 but they are 950

[rocker935]

so is there a "Tip Or Trick" to fix that?

[krazylilroker777]

no

[Joe88]

Theirs no way to fix that.

[puss]

the 50mb goes to the firmware of the memory stick
its like ipod u buy 30gb and get like 28 or so

[puss]

the 50mb goes to the firmware of the memory stick
its like ipod u buy 30gb and get like 28 or so

[haz]

the 50mb goes to the firmware of the memory stick
its like ipod u buy 30gb and get like 28 or so

Why post twice :E And my 1GB memory stick only had 940mb when i got mine, so it happens with all of them i think

[shortywanabtall]

just read this:

The Question / Concern
One frequent question which comes up when one first gets a brand new Memory Stick Duo for use with the PSP is related to why the capacity of the card is different from the expected or advertised size. One might buy a "512 MB" card, but find instead that the card is listed as having only 488 MB (or similar) of free space, even when completely empty. So why does this occur?

The Answer / Explanation
While some may try to explain this away as "overhead due to the file system", the truth of the situation is actually somewhat more depressing, and relates to how storage manufacturers measure a megabyte; there's more going on than just "overhead". In short, manufacturers are doing "funny math" in order to arrive at their claimed storage capacities. Here's the correct math:

1024 bytes is a kilobyte.
1024 kilobytes is a megabyte.
So 512 megabytes is 512 * 1024 * 1024 = 536,870,912 bytes.

But how many bytes does Sandisk say 512 megabytes is, in the small print on their products? 512,000,000 bytes, which is actually only 488 megabytes. When Windows checks the capacity and reports this, it performs the correct division (based on powers of 2, not powers of 10), and one finds that the "512 MB Memory Stick Duo" in fact can't hold 512 megabytes of data. In fact, all of Sandisk's flash storage literature states that they consider a gigabyte to be a billion bytes. Presumably they state this up-front to avoid a lawsuit related to false advertising!

This isn't just limited to Sandisk; most or all manufacturers seem to be doing this now. Sony states, for their Memory Stick Duos, that "1GB = 940MB, [since] a portion is used for data management functions". This is a statement of questionnable truth, since the actual overhead for most file systems (e.g. FAT) is nowhere near this large. Regardless, even though most file systems do have some amount of overhead, the capacity the storage manufacturer markets to the end user should ideally be the actual usable storage space. Even if there is some overhead, it's just a portion of the 1024 - 940 = 84MB which the customer is being cheated out of; certainly use of "funny math" would explain 70MB (83%) of the missing space.

Note that this same practice has been being used by hard drive manufacturers for years. For hard drives, the problem is even more pronounced, because as the capacity gets larger, the difference between the expected and the actual numbers continues to get worse. Consider the example of a 200GB hard drive. This should be:

200 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 214,748,364,800 bytes.

But harddisk manufacturers produce a drive which is only 200,000,000,000 bytes, or 186.26 GB. This cheats customers out of roughly 14 GB (7%) of what would be the expected data storage!

The Summary / Conclusion
Even though one may think there's "something wrong with this memory card", there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's simply sold with a capacity rating that it doesn't really have, and through small print and rounding, manufacturers attempt to explain this error away.

The exact amount by which a given manufacturer is cheating may vary, but its likely that all of them are doing this to some extent, and the general scheme they use is to consider "x MB" as "x million bytes", even though this is simply not the case in the computer world. Until manufacturers change this practice, or the operating system itself starts lying and performing incorrect division on purpose, this discrepency will continue to exist.

[Will4042]

my 1gb has 949mb

[shortywanabtall]

my 1gb has 949mb congratulations. lol

[haz]

my 1gb has 949mb
Thats because your special :) . Lol

[p4ch3c0]

my 1gb has 949mb
You have the same avatar as RaiderX :twisted:

[lord]

uh oh...avatar stealing....neway to the person that posted that looong quote noone read that lol..yeah u dont lose space to formatting u free it up actually by deleting stuff off

[FamilyGuy]

949/948mbs regardless of whether the card has been formatted. That's how many mbs are in a 1gb stick, ask anyone. :|

[lord]

actually if stuff is on the card and u format it will delete everything off thus, freeing up more space

[shortywanabtall]

uh oh...avatar stealing....neway to the person that posted that looong quote noone read that lol..yeah u dont lose space to formatting u free it up actually by deleting stuff off

I think pleanty of people read it. If not, then I dont care. But it answers the exact question and gives a perfectally logical reason why they are less then they say.

[FamilyGuy]

They are not less than what they say. You have to do all the 1024 x math and then understand the sizes are correct. :sigh:

[gthirst]

most 1gb sticks have 949 :?
I just sold my 1 gb's and bought the hard drive, 1gb was too small.

[lord]

uh oh...avatar stealing....neway to the person that posted that looong quote noone read that lol..yeah u dont lose space to formatting u free it up actually by deleting stuff off

I think pleanty of people read it. If not, then I dont care. But it answers the exact question and gives a perfectally logical reason why they are less then they say.

nah i wasn't bashin ur effort it was quite helpful i think (still haven't read it) or else ppl wud have said so

[GameShark]

The cards have a partition(file system)
This is for thr filr table and stuff

Cant get it back sorry

[RipeTomatoe]

the 4 gb only has like 3833 cuz thats all the psp can handle lol jippin us like 150 mb there and u lose (like someone sed) approx. 5% on the stick cuz its sold at an easier number to remember (at least thats wat i tell myself) lol