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Seagate CEO Bill Watkins has more than a few things to worry about: Seagate purchasers are entitled to free software or 5% cash back

With Cho v. Seagate Technology Holdings, Inc. wrapping up, Seagate customers who purchased a hard drive in OEM or retail packaging between the dates of March 22, 2001 and September 26, 2007 are eligible to receive one of two different settlement benefits per hard drive purchased:
  • The “cash benefit” is available to customers who purchased a Seagate hard drive between March 22, 2001 and January 1, 2006, and entitles customers to receive 5% cash back on the amount they paid for the hard drive, before taxes. Claims for a cash benefit must be filed using the mail-in form, which is available on the settlement web site.
  • The “software benefit” is available to customers who purchased a Seagate hard drive between the dates of March 22, 2001 and September 26, 2007, and entitles claimants to a free copy of the Seagate Software Suite, which retails for $40. Claims for a software benefit can be filled out online.

In both cases, customers must have purchased the hard drive as a discrete unit, as hard drives shipped with pre-built computers are not eligible under the proposed terms.

Cho v. Seagate was filed in April of 2005 by Sara Cho over claims that Seagate falsely advertised the capacity of their hard drives, overstating it by 7%. The nature of these claims lies in the difference between a gigabyte (1,000,000,000 bytes of 1 GB) and a giga binary byte (1,073,741,824 bytes or 1 GiB), as the abbreviation of “GB” is often used for both.

Seagate has denied and continued to deny both the false advertising claims and the fact that it has harmed anyone, and as of yet the courts have not ruled on the merits of the case.

Under the proposed terms of the settlement, Seagate will be required to:

  • Make “certain disclosures” about the nature of its hard drives’ storage capacity.
  • Reimburse affected customers with the benefits listed above.
  • Pay $1.8 million in attorney’s fees to the plaintiff’s counsel.

The final hearing date to approve the settlement will take place on February 7, 2008 at the San Francisco Superior Court.

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5% vs. 7%
By mdogs444 on 10/23/2007 8:25:42 PM , Rating: 1
Just as a honest question -

How is that they only have to give back 5% when they took you for 7%? Shouldnt they be required to give you back 7% if they overstated 7%?

I know pricing of hard drives are close, even when they are 20, 50, 100 gigs difference, but its seems that it would make more sense to give back 7%.

Just my opinion.




RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Adonlude on 10/23/2007 8:40:05 PM , Rating: 2
Depreciation in the cost per GB over the last few years perhaps?


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Justin Case on 10/23/2007 8:42:36 PM , Rating: 3
They didn't "take you" for anything. "Giga" / "G" means 10^9 and their "80 GB" drives do have 80 x 10^9 bytes. The problem is that most software (wrongly) considers that "Giga" / "G" stands for 2^30 (which is an incorrect use of a standard SI magnitude prefix).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga

Seagate is probably doing this because they've concluded that it's cheaper than paying the lawyers, even if they win (which I'm pretty sure they would).

If they had claimed their drives had 80 GiB and it turned out they had 80 GB, then they would have been fooling people. As it is, they were the ones being accurate; it's the operating system that reports the wrong size (smaller than it should). An 80 GB drive from Seagate (or any other manufacturer) does have 80,000,000,000 bytes (actually, they usually have a little bit more than that).

If these people want to sue anyone, they should be suing Microsoft (& others) for reporting the drive size in GiB and calling it GB.


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By TomZ on 10/23/2007 8:58:13 PM , Rating: 5
Justin, you should be smart enough to realize that the computer industry repurposed SI prefixes many years ago and has used powers-of-two to measure memory for at least 35-40 years. Your statement that "software is wrong" is itself wrong since it adheres to the classic definitions instead of the newer "binary" units that were much more recently defined.

Furthermore, the "binary" units have not been fully embraced by the computer industry. For example, semiconductor memory is always measured in powers-of-two. That is because their manufactured size is powers-of-two, just as HDDs are.


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Justin Case on 10/23/2007 9:35:37 PM , Rating: 2
The "newer binary units" (I take it you mean the IEC binary prefixes, not units, since the units are the actual bytes) are "Ki" / "Mi" / "Gi" / etc.. Not "k" / "M" / "G" / etc., which are standard SI magnitude prefixes, based on powers of ten.

Seagate is absolutely correct when stating that their 80,000,000,000 byte drive has 80 GB. Sorry but just because some lazy programmers decided that 1024 was "close enough" to 1000 to call it a "kilobyte", that does not change the meaning of the SI magnitude prefixes used in just about every area of science and engineering.

1 kg isn't 1024 grams, 1 MW is not 1048576 watts and 1 GHz is not 1073741824 hertz.

1 GB = 10^9 B = 1,000,000,000 B
1 GiB = 2^30 B = 1,073,741,824 B

...just as...

1 GHz = 10^9 Hz = 1,000,000,000 Hz
1 GiHz = 2^30 Hz = 1,073,741,824 Hz

Software in general (and operating systems in particular) should either start to report the real size of drives, or change the prefixes from SI decimal to IEC binary.

The "computer industry" did not (and cannot) "repurpose" standard SI prefixes. Network connection speeds, interface speeds and media bitrates, for example, are typically measured using the correct SI multiples. The same goes for hard drives. It's only RAM and software reporting of file sizes / disk space that uses binary multiples, and it's about time that was fixed.

If Windows starts reporting years as having 255 days, does that mean calendar makers should get sued?


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By TomZ on 10/23/2007 9:56:02 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Sorry but just because some lazy programmers decided that 1024 was "close enough" to 1000 to call it a "kilobyte", that does not change the meaning of the SI magnitude prefixes used in just about every area of science and engineering.

No, not true - it was done this way from the beginning of computer science (in the 1950's or 1960's, maybe earlier) because memory was always manufactured in powers-of-two sizes. Therefore it became convenient to have, e.g., KB = 1024 bytes instead of 1000 bytes. I'm stating facts here, not opinions - open any CS/CE/EE textbook written and you'll see the same basic definition.
quote:
The "computer industry" did not (and cannot) "repurpose" standard SI prefixes. Network connection speeds, interface speeds and media bitrates, for example, are typically measured using the correct SI multiples. The same goes for hard drives. It's only RAM and software reporting of file sizes / disk space that uses binary multiples, and it's about time that was fixed.

Again, oh really, then where did the original definitions come from, before IEC? Also, you don't have a good explanation as to why RAM uses powers-of-two while other things like bitrates do not. The reason is that RAM, like HDDs, are manufactured in increments of powers-of-two, so it is most convenient to express their capacities that way. Bitrates, however, are based on powers-of-ten crystals, e.g., 100MHz crystal.


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Justin Case on 10/24/2007 1:46:50 AM , Rating: 2
Just because something is "convenient" (read, easier to implement) does not make it correct.

And it certainly does not mean that people who use the SI magnitude prefixes correctly (as they are used in every branch of science and engineering) are all of a sudden wrong.

The SI prefix "giga" / "G" stands for "multiplied by 10 raised to the power of nine", period. It doesn't have different meanings depending on what you are measuring, just as the number "ten" doesn't represent different amounts depending on what you are counting.

And you're (also) confusing bitrates (a digital concept) with bandwidth (an analog concept). The bandwidth used by digital interfaces is usually higher than its bitrate.


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By mindless1 on 10/24/07, Rating: 0
RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Justin Case on 10/24/07, Rating: 0
RE: 5% vs. 7%
By TomZ on 10/24/2007 12:04:22 PM , Rating: 1
So what's your excuse...? :o)


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Proteusza on 10/24/2007 12:10:07 PM , Rating: 2
Does the SI define what a byte is? We know them to be 8 bits (hence the "by eight").

Because, if not, then why should the ISO define how to count bits of bytes?

For an example, the Imperial system has feet and inches, among other things. 12 inches = 1 foot. But foot is not an SI measurement, neither are inches.

I guess, what he is saying, is that because the ISO doesnt define inches (unless they do?) they cant define kilo-inches or mega-inches. They also cant define what a foot is.

I think thats what hes getting at. Myself, I wonder if there is a better body for standardizing computer measurements than the SI.


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Justin Case on 10/24/2007 1:54:19 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Does the SI define what a byte is? We know them to be 8 bits (hence the "by eight").


The actual unit of data is the bit; the byte is just a "working" amount that depends on specific system architecture details. Various sizes (from 5 to 12 bits) are used by different devices. Which is why some languages (ex., French) use the word "octet" to describe 8-bit bytes (the size used by the vast majority of personal computers).

Since a bit is simply a binary digit (a two-state entity) and "eight" is a common number, there is no need to "define" either unit (unlike, say, a meter or a foot, which needs to be defined as a physical length).

quote:
why should the ISO define how to count bits of bytes?


They don't. But they do define what numeric notations mean. It doesn't matter what you are counting; "kilo-" always means x10³ (x10^3) and x10³ always means "times one thousand".

Of course, you are free to decide that 10³ actually means (to you) "three hundred and twelve", but don't expect to get a job in engineering.

It would perhaps be simpler to have a standard definition for "byte" (which enforced the 8-bit size), but that would go against the original spirit of the term (if it was meant to be exactly 8 bits long, people would have called it "octet" to begin with; the term "byte" was chosen precisely because its size could vary - like bite sizes vary with the size of the mouth). In systems with parity and other error recovery mechanisms, one byte of data often takes up more than 8 bits on the "physical" medium, but it's still called one byte.

When documenting interaction between different types of systems, where byte size compatibility can be an issue, the term "octet" is frequently used instead of "byte", to mean "8 bits", even in English (ex., RFC / IETF documents).

English and Imperial / American units (which aren't always identical, despite using the same names) were not defined by a single body, they are a collection of "traditional" units from different fields, which have been redefined several times throughout history.

They are older than the ISO and CIPM, so they definitely weren't determined by those bodies, but they are currently (as of 1985) based on SI units (for example, a yard is defined as "exactly 0.9144 meters", a foot is defined as "1/3rd of a yard" and the inch is defined as "1/36th of a yard"). So, in a way, the CIPM does define them. Here:

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?activeTe...

None of that, however, alters the fact that the SI magnitude prefixes were already established by the time someone decided to coin the term "kilobyte". And I have no doubt that the person who did that knew perfectly well what "kilo" meant (as is clearly shown by the fact that he picked the power of two closest to the official meaning of "kilo-").

The problem was that the term was originally used merely as an approximation. 1024 bytes is "1 kilobyte" if you round it to the nearest kilobyte, just as 16386 bytes is "16 kilobytes" if you round it to the nearest kilobyte. People in the industry knew it was just an approximation. It was never meant to be extrapolatd to gigabytes and terabytes.

Normal users today do not understand (nor should they be required to understand) why that approximation was used, instead of using the terms "kilo", "mega", etc., as they are used in every other context ("kilowatt", "megahertz", etc., always meaning exact powers of ten).

When someone says that the diameter of the Earth is 8 thousand miles, that doesn't mean a mile is now defined as 1/8000th of the Earth's diameter. It just means that person decided to round the Earth's diameter to the nearest thousand miles, for practical reasons. In fact, a mile is defined as 1760 yards, and one yard is defined as 0.9144 meters (in other words, 1 mile is exactly 1609.344 meters).

quote:
I wonder if there is a better body for standardizing computer measurements than the SI.


What do you mean by "computer measurements"? Unless you are dealing with physical entities (space, time, forces, etc.), numbers are just numbers. You don't need to define the meaning of "1000" for "computers" any more than you need to define the meaning of "1000" for bananas. Information is an abstract concept; it's based on pure maths. The SI (and the CIPM, which defines the SI) has nothing to do with it.

If you mean computing terms in general (not measurements), then, again, those have nothing to do with the SI; they are defined by several different organizations, like the IEEE, ISO and IEC. But all those organizations use the SI magnitude prefixes when writing numbers, and they all agree that calling 1024 bytes "one kilobyte" is wrong . The "binary" prefixes ("Ki", "Mi", etc.) were created by the IEC - they are not part of the SI - to give people an easier alternative.


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By TomZ on 10/24/2007 2:12:51 PM , Rating: 1
You seem pretty smart, but maybe a little clueless about comp sci terminology. The meaning of a "byte" being exactly 8 bits is nearly universal. For processors that address a different number of bits at a time, that unit is typically called a "word," not a "byte."

Also, I've only rarely heard of "octet" used in English to mean the same thing as "byte" = 8 bits. That use is very uncommon in English - I've only seen it used in some of the older Internet protocol definitions.

I didn't get through the rest of your post - too long for me, sorry.


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By MrPoletski on 10/24/2007 2:33:25 PM , Rating: 2
I'm waiting for the base-9/octal number system for defining hard disk capacity lol


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Justin Case on 10/24/2007 8:31:50 PM , Rating: 2
Waiting? You're about 30 years too late. Been there, done that, unlikely to go back. It's bad enough having to deal with big-endian vs. little-endian bytes, completely different sizes for "ints" (sometimes on the same system) and so on.

If you ask me, we should just measure things in bits (which is exactly what people do with modern media formats).


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By murphyslabrat on 10/24/2007 3:44:45 PM , Rating: 2
"Older protocol definitions" or not, my Intro to Networking instructor calls the bytes of an IP address "Octets".

While uncommon, it is still a valid name.


RE: 5% vs. 7%
By Justin Case on 10/24/2007 4:37:48 PM , Rating: 1
It's not just valid; it's essential when you're dealing with devices that handle information in "chunks" of 9, 10 or 12 bits, for example. And those protocols are very much in use today (as I'm sure you know but TomZ above apparently doesn't).