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Is my pen-drive performing okay?

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kyrathaba:
I have an AutoIt script I wrote that syncs my pendrives to:

(1) a 500 GB external Memorex drive
(2) a location on my C:\ drive
(3) my Dropbox (sensitive stuff on the pendrive is encrypted)
(4) my SkyDrive (see #3)
(5) a location on my wife's laptop via our home network (if her laptop is actively connected to the network)
(6) a location on my secondary desktop-PC via our home network)

Additionally, I occasionally FTP backups to my DC space.

f0dder:
But I don't understand the mbits, MiB, MB differences.-kyrathaba (September 22, 2012, 07:40 AM)
--- End quote ---
Well, it didn't get easier after the opensores world decided to go all SI-nazi... back in the olden days, in the context of computing, our 'k' meant 1024 (2^10), 'm' was 2^20, et cetera. People generally weren't confused - and we all knew the harddrive manufacturers used the normal-world convention when stating drive sizes, those weazely scumbags ;)

Today, pretty much all you can say for certain is that... if you see somebody using the terms KiB, MiB, kibibyte, mebibyte... then you're dealing with the old 1024-based numbers (and a basement-dwelling pedantic idealist that you shouldn't ever try having a rational discussion with). Anywhere else, you'll have to study context and guesstimate. So much for standardization.

mbit/s or mbps ought to mean the same - megabits per second - but whether they're talking about 2^20 or 10^3 depends on context. Also, you'll see the basement-dwellers claiming that zomg-it-should-be-capital-M, totally ignoring that outside extremely specific and rare situations, talking about millibits just doesn't make sense.

(I'm generally in favor of SI, because the units tend to simply make sense, compared to legacy crap like pounds and yards and inches and whatnot, I'm just not convinced in the context of computing. Especially since their 2^n unit names are so ridiculous).

kyrathaba:
So have I been correct in my understanding of the following, or is it only correct depending on who you talk to?

1 Kb = 1024 bytes
1 Mb = 1024 Kb
1 GB = 1024 Mb
--- End quote ---

f0dder:
Depends on context :) - and I'm a bit surprised that you have Mb but GB in that table. If you're in a context where one could confuse bits and bytes, spell out bits in full.

Other than that, yes, you've got the 1024-scale right. And keep in mind that storage vendors use the 10^(3n) rather than the 2^(10n) scale.

kyrathaba:
Heh, confusing stuff... so the storage vendors using 10^(3n) system is why the 32GB microSDHC card I bought says on the packaging:

1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes

rather than what I was given to understand, which is that:

1 GB = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes

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