Where can I see the capacity of my disk and what size is best?

When choosing a computer, whether a desktop or a laptop, the capacity of its storage drive is becoming increasingly important.

If your hard drive is already showing signs of failure and the files matter, see our hard drive data recovery service.

And no wonder: capacity is the amount of data a disk can store. As we keep more and more data on our devices, knowing what size of disk you need really matters.

In this article, you’ll learn what disk capacity means, which sizes are available (and which is currently the largest), how to check the capacity of your disk and why it may show less space than the label says.

You’ll also find out what size of disk is right for you and how to restore a disk to its full capacity.

01What does disk capacity mean?

Disk capacity is the amount of data a disk can store, measured in gigabytes or terabytes. It’s usually much more than the space taken up by your applications.

02What disk sizes are available?

Today, storage drives come in many sizes. The most common are:

16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB

These are among the smallest capacities and are usually found in older or smaller devices, normally with flash storage rather than a hard drive.

120 GB and 256 GB

This range is generally considered entry level for laptops and desktop computers, and is most common on SSDs.

500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB

Around 500 GB or more is usually considered enough for the average user (someone who uses their PC regularly for more than just a web browser and a word processor).

With this much space, most users can store all their music, photos, videos and other files.

However, if you play games or use software that takes up a lot of space, 1 TB to 2 TB is a better fit.

More than 2 TB

This much space suits users who work with high-resolution files, need to store or host large amounts of data, or want to use it for backup and redundancy.

03What is the largest hard drive in the world?

The largest hard drives on the market now exceed 30 TB, and capacities keep growing. However, every disk shows less space than advertised in the operating system, mainly because manufacturers and operating systems count bytes differently (as explained below), and because the file system itself takes up some space.

How do I check the capacity of my disk?

How you check your disk’s capacity depends on your operating system (Windows or Mac). Here’s how to do it on each:

Windows

1. Open the “Start” menu by clicking the Windows icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen, or press the Windows key on your keyboard;
2. Open “Settings” by clicking the gear icon in the “Start” menu;
3. Click “System” on the “Settings” page. If another page opens instead of the main settings page, click the “Back” button in the top-left corner until you return to it;
4. Click “Storage” in the menu on the left of the “System” page;
5. Check the disk capacity. Under “Local storage”, you’ll see your disk with the space “used” and “free” below it. The first figure shows how much of the disk is in use, and the second how much free space is left;
6. Open the disk details. Click the disk under “Local storage” to see a list showing how much space each type of file, program and so on is taking up. This helps you decide what to clean up if you want to free some space.

Mac

1. Open the Apple menu by clicking the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen. A drop-down menu will appear;
2. Click “About This Mac” at the top of the menu. A new window will open (on macOS Ventura and later, go to “System Settings” > “General” > “Storage” instead);
3. Click the “Storage” tab at the top of the “About This Mac” window;
4. Check the space on your Mac’s disk. You’ll see how much space is free out of the total capacity (e.g. “15 GB available of 249 GB”).

This page also shows a color-coded breakdown of what’s taking up the most space.

If you hover the mouse over a colored section, you can see exactly how much space that category (e.g. “Applications”) is using.

Why does my disk show less capacity than the label says?

Disk manufacturers state capacity in decimal units (base 10). In decimal notation, a megabyte (MB) is 1,000,000 bytes, a gigabyte (GB) is 1,000,000,000 bytes and a terabyte (TB) is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes.

Programs such as FDISK, the system BIOS, Windows and older versions of macOS use binary units (base 2) instead. Since macOS 10.6, Macs show capacity in decimal units, just like manufacturers.

In binary units, a megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes, a gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes and a terabyte is 1,099,511,627,776 bytes.

Conversion formula

• Capacity in bytes / 1,048,576 = binary capacity in MB
• Capacity in bytes / 1,073,741,824 = binary capacity in GB
• Capacity in bytes / 1,099,511,627,776 = binary capacity in TB

Example:

A 500 GB disk has about 500,000,000,000 bytes (500 × 1,000,000,000).

Using the binary calculation in GB (500,000,000,000 / 1,073,741,824), the same 500 GB shows up as about 465 GB.

That’s why Windows shows a 500 GB drive as 465 GB.

A 5 TB disk has about 5,000,000,000,000 bytes (5 × 1,000,000,000,000).

Using the binary calculation in TB (5,000,000,000,000 / 1,099,511,627,776), the same 5 TB shows up as about 4.54 TB.

That’s why Windows shows a 5 TB drive as 4.54 TB.

04What is the ideal disk size?

When deciding how much capacity you need, consider the types and amount of files you’ll be storing.

You can also consider how intensively you’ll use the disk:

Light use (500 GB – 1 TB)

Usually recommended for	Home office
File types	Documents, small images (3–5 MB), non-professional audio (5 MB)

 

Moderate use (1 TB – 4 TB)

Usually recommended for	Photographers, videographers, video editors, music producers and game designers, or anyone who makes heavier use of a home office setup
File types	Photos (5 MB), high-quality professional audio (15–20 MB), SD videos (~1.5 GB for 2 hours) and small games (300 MB–4 GB)

 

Heavy use (4 TB+)

Usually recommended for	Content creators, large file collections, or a combination of any of the above
File types	HD movies (6–8 GB) and/or large games (10+ GB)

 

As we’ve seen, the right disk size depends not only on the type of data you want to store but also on how much of it you have.

It’s also worth remembering that you can move files from your internal drive to an external drive: copy them first and check the copy before deleting them from the internal drive.

05How do I restore a disk’s full capacity?

To restore a disk’s full capacity, you can try one of the following 5 fixes. Fixes 1 to 3 erase the data on the disk, so copy any files you need to another drive first:

Fix 1: quick format the disk

This is the simplest method. Follow these steps:

• Connect the disk to your computer (if it’s an external drive) and open “This PC” in File Explorer;
• Right-click the disk that’s showing reduced capacity and choose “Format”;
• Choose the file system you want and the other formatting options, click “Start” and wait for formatting to finish. Remember that this deletes everything on the disk.

Fix 2: delete the partition and reformat the disk in Disk Management

If a quick format doesn’t fix the problem, try this approach.

Use “Disk Management” to delete the existing partitions and format the whole disk.

• With the disk connected, open “Disk Management” from the “Start” menu (right-click “Start”), or open “Run” and type diskmgmt.msc;
• In “Disk Management”, right-click the partition and choose “Delete Volume” to delete the smaller partition (for example, a 32 GB partition on a much larger disk);
• Once all the partitions have been deleted, right-click the unallocated space and choose “New Simple Volume”;
• This opens a wizard where you choose the file system for the drive. Follow the steps and fill in the details to create and format a volume that uses the whole disk.

Fix 3: use DiskPart to format the drive

Sometimes, for various reasons, it’s hard to restore a disk to its original size.

In that case, the best option is to open the Command Prompt and use the DiskPart utility to fix the problem.

• First, connect the disk to your computer and open the Command Prompt as administrator;
• In the Command Prompt, type diskpart to load the disk partitioning utility;
• Type list disk to see all connected disks, then use the select command followed by the disk number to choose the right one (e.g. select disk 2). Check the size carefully so you don’t select the wrong disk;
• With the disk selected, type clean. This deletes the partition table and all partitions on the disk, making its data inaccessible;
• Then type create partition primary to create a primary partition on the drive;
• Finally, type the format command followed by the file system. For example, to format the disk as NTFS, type format fs=ntfs quick, and then assign to give it a drive letter.

Fix 4: update the disk drivers

If your system is using an old or outdated driver, you may have trouble getting the external hard drive to show its full capacity.

To fix this, update the drivers (disk or USB) to the latest versions available. Here’s how:

• Search for “Device Manager” in the “Start” menu and open it, or open “Run” and type devmgmt.msc;
• In “Device Manager”, expand the relevant category and select your disk or USB device;
• Right-click the device and choose “Update driver”. A wizard will open that searches for updates and installs them on your system.

Fix 5: install the USB driver manually

Finally, you can install the drivers manually. To do this, you need to know the device details so you can find the compatible driver on the manufacturer’s website.

• Open “Device Manager”, right-click the device and select “Properties”;
• In the “Properties” window, go to the “Details” tab and check the device information.
• Then go to the manufacturer’s official website, download the right driver and install it on your system.

06Conclusion

Disk capacities range from a few hundred gigabytes to well over 4 TB. To find the right size for you, consider both the amount and the type of data you need to store and use.

The larger and more demanding the applications you use (and the larger the files you store), the more capacity your disk should have.

In some cases, restoring a disk’s full capacity requires formatting it, which can also mean losing the data stored on it.

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