8GB USB key only shows 6.43GB?

Hi, sorry I don't know if this is the correct place to post my question. But anyway, I have an 8GB SanDisk Cruzer drive and when I plug it into Vista it only shows 6.43GB. Is this normal? If so where is the other 1.5GB'ish of space gone?

Probably find that it is taken up by the pre-loaded U3, and as many of the U3 apps as Sandisk decided to stuff on it More info on U3,

Bring the power of portable software to your USB flash drive - make it a U3 smart drive!

If that is what it is and you don't want and/or need any of the U3 stuff they provide a removal tool,

Bring the power of portable software to your USB flash drive - make it a U3 smart drive!

Hi MadBull,

Because of the way in which drive capacities are advertised and the way in which they are detected on a computer, let's do some calculations:

8GB = 8 x 10^9 = 8,000,000,000 bytes

However, this is Decimal, whereas the computer uses Binary. Therefore:

8,000,000,000 / 2^30 = 7.45GB (to 2 decimal places). This is the actual capacity of a stick advertised as 8GB.

That still leaves just over 1GB. Is the stick a U3 model? When you plug it in, is it detected as a single drive or a multiple drive? If it is detected as a multiple drive, then it is a U3 model. These have a separate partition containing the U3 subsystem, as well as associated programs supplied on the stick. It is possible that the total of these programs adds upto the missing 1GB.

Hi, if it helps this is the exact drive I'm using: http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(2585)-SDCZ4-8192-A11-SanDisk_Cruzer_Micro_Skin_USB_Flash_Drive_8GB.aspx

I have two of these with one still in the package, but I don't think they are U3. They show up as one drive when plugged in and are formatted as FAT32. Its just that there seems to be roughly a gig missing out of nowhere, which makes no sense.

Maybe I'm ignoring some other feature of these drives.

You *are* ignoring some of the features.

U3, by default, has *2* drives with it - a "cd rom" driver that has the main U3 stuff on it (the U3 software etc) and then the main drive, which is used for your storage.

My personal opinion - get rid of the U3 crap by using the U3 uninstaller - see Bring the power of portable software to your USB flash drive - make it a U3 smart drive! - and then format the UFD using NTFS - and then enter the word of PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives

I would reformat the usb drive with a different format:D

Thanks for the links and replies! It worked, I now have 7.47GB on an 8GB memory stick.