First regular Hard Drives (spinning disks):
When looking details of a brand new hard drives, I've noticed that the available space usually ends with xxx,000,000,000
For example, a 750 GB drive is usually at least 750,000,000,000 bytes. Maybe a few extra bytes. In other words, 750*1000*1000*1000 (not 1024 multiples).
The operating system calculates by dividing by 1024 multiple times. Upon dividing 750,000,000,000 bytes by 1024 ^ 3 the result is 698.49 GB (which is what I would expect my Operating system to display as the actual size of the drive due to this "1024 based sizing math").
Now onto USB Flash drives:
So, when I connect a brand new USB flash drive should I also correctly expect to see (in the case of a 64 GB size) 64,000,000,000 bytes for the overall size of the drive? (on a couple brand new flash drives I'm seeing considerably less which is why I'm asking this question)
Regarding internal USB flash drive maintenance:
Over time, when you use a flash based storage device, I've come to the understanding the drive will do internal maintenance (wear leveling, etc). But, I'm trying to determine if the extent of missing sectors that I'm seeing is normal on a couple of brand new flash drives. One is missing over 700 MB and the other is missing over 5.2 GB
Does that mean that the overall amount of sectors available to the Operating system or partitioning tools shrinks over time as sectors are removed from availability (due to being marked bad, etc)?
BACKGROUND: When discussing storage space size, many people instantly assume the 1024 vs 1000 based math for calculating size is the question at hand (it is not). I realize for the Operating system to report 64GB that would mean the drive actually would need to have 64 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 68,719,476,736 bytes so that when you divide by 1024 three times you get back to the number "64" GB. And that is not what the manufacturers do.
In Summary:
Note: Referring to the raw storage capacity of the drive; disregarding MFT, file system overhead, etc... RAW sectors and therefore raw bytes available to the device...
The main questions are:
For a USB Flash drive, would you expect at least 64,000,000,000 bytes (125,000,000 sectors * 512 = 64,000,000,000) to be the size of the drive (as displayed in Windows Disk Management, or Linux Gparted, etc).
Also, does the total amount permanently shrink over time through normal use (drive maintenance)?
