Samsung SD Card Not Showing Full Gigs

onthehunt

Well-known member
Apr 27, 2010
200
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Just received my Samsung 256GB sd card today for my Note 7 and installed it based on the Note 7 manual. It recommended formating the card in the phone, but I didn't see an option to do that in the device maintenance/storage/sd card section as the manual recommends. Once installed, it registered 238.4GB and not 256 GB. Since the card didn't have anything on it, why did it lose 18GB?

I want to transfer my photos from internal storage to the sd card. Do I have to do that manually? Any other transfer suggestions? Thanks in advance.
 

Damien B

Active member
Aug 4, 2016
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Most likely the reason the card is showing a lower capacity now that it is formatted is simply because of how storage works. Once formatted, there will be lower storage than what the card is actually marketed as, depending on what the card is being used in. For instance, I have a 64 GB card in my phone, but after formatting it was 59 GB available. As far as transferring photos, I'm not sure as I don't have the note 7 and, depending on the device, the process can differ. Maybe someone else can pop in and offer that answer for you.
 

mhinc

Well-known member
Dec 27, 2012
2,051
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Just received my Samsung 256GB sd card today for my Note 7 and installed it based on the Note 7 manual. It recommended formating the card in the phone, but I didn't see an option to do that in the device maintenance/storage/sd card section as the manual recommends. Once installed, it registered 238.4GB and not 256 GB. Since the card didn't have anything on it, why did it lose 18GB?

I want to transfer my photos from internal storage to the sd card. Do I have to do that manually? Any other transfer suggestions? Thanks in advance.

A manufacturer considers 1 Megabyte to be 1000 Kilobytes, 1 Gigabyte to be 1000 Megabytes, 1 Terabyte to be 1000 Gigabytes and so on. This is correct considering that kilo means 1000 and mega means 1000000 (10^6). However, computers calculate on base 2 and to them, 1 MB is actually 1024 kilobytes, 1GB is 1024MB and 1 TB is 1024GB. This difference in the method of computation is responsible for this "missing space."

Lets take an example of a 500 GB hard disk.

From a manufacturer's point of view, the 500GB will have 500*1000*1000*1000 = 500000000000 bytes.

From a computer's point of view, 500GB is actually 500*1024*1024*1024 = 536870912000 bytes.

So, a hard drive that promises to have 500 GB storage space will actually display 465.66GB, 536870912000-500000000000 = 36870912000 bytes (34.34GB) less storage space when connected to a computer
 

homer813

Well-known member
Sep 2, 2016
70
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0
Just received my Samsung 256GB sd card today for my Note 7 and installed it based on the Note 7 manual. It recommended formating the card in the phone, but I didn't see an option to do that in the device maintenance/storage/sd card section as the manual recommends. Once installed, it registered 238.4GB and not 256 GB. Since the card didn't have anything on it, why did it lose 18GB?

I want to transfer my photos from internal storage to the sd card. Do I have to do that manually? Any other transfer suggestions? Thanks in advance.

All drives work that way. You never get to use their full capacity.

Moving photos is easy. Go to My Files and find your photos. They are usually under My phone>DCIM>Camera. Press and hold one of the photos to select it. Select all the photos you want to move, hit the three dots at the top right and select Move. Select whatever folder you want on your SD card.
 

onthehunt

Well-known member
Apr 27, 2010
200
6
18
homer813, most of my photos are in albums. If I select all, won't the photos be moved to the sd card without putting them into designated albums? I have a lot of albums and photos and want to ensure they stay in their respective albums.
 

homer813

Well-known member
Sep 2, 2016
70
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0
Create a folder on the SD card under the name of the albums. Move one album at a time.
 

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