I have a desktop with 40GB space, xp, a laptop with no hard drive-I run it off a ubuntu live cd, and the newest one has 2 hard drives, one with 300gb space, and the other for backup, with 15gb space.

This is total space or just free space?

Total. On that one I have about 200mb free space.

Desktop: 500 GB + 320 GB
MacBook: 250 GB
Ideapad: 160 GB
PowerMac G4 Server: 80 GB
PowerMac G4 DA: 80 GB
eMac G4: 30 (or 40?) GB

and some other systems with all from 2 to 20 GB...

160 GB WD SATA 2. Also have one spare 80 GB SAMSUNG ATA from my old pc but it's probably dead.

i'm planing to buy WD 500 GB though...

320GB WD 3200AAKS
250GB Seagate FreeAgent ext. backup

Main Desktop: 200GB WD2000 SATA
Server: 250GB WD2500 SATA
Laptop: 320GB SATA
Old Desktop: 80GB IDE

btw how can you tell between SATA and SATAII

Principal PC:
15GB - Windows
80GB - Storage
160GB - Storage too

2TB

There are 3 SATA standards so far:
-SATA: 1,5 GB/s, the first gen. SATA
-SATA II: 3 GB/s, the most common one, and in my opinion the best
-SATA III: 6 GB/s, the newest but also quite expensive (for me)

You simply look at the specs and see which gen. it is. Generaly the newer standard is backwards compatible (e.g. SATA II cable on SATA device), but you get speed limitations when using e.g. vice versa of previous example...

Mine is 298 GB. (I'm deceived - it should be 300 GB)

You'll find it's actually a 320GB drive, but the formatted value is smaller because of the file system.

Wow! What file system can I use to acces (almost) the whole harddrive? I'm currently using NTFS. (Sorry for going offtopic)

The difference between the advertised capacity and the actual capacity has nothing to do with the file system. The advertised capacity is in decimal units and the capacity that appears in disk utilities (before any partition is even created) is in binary units.

as random_user said, file system has nothing to do with it. it's just a mismatch of actual and advertised capacity. But just to answer your question: none. no file system is better than NTFS (on windows of course). Besides, if you have Vista or 7 you can't install them on a partition with file system other than NTFS.

It's actually a combination of both. The file system still uses some space itself and reserves it, so it doesn't show up to the user.

i thought that was the hidden 100 MB system partition in Vista/7...

No. It's to do with the way some manufacturers use base 2 and some use base 10 when displaying size. Also the file system still uses some space for its self for the master boot record, etc. Windows does keep a 100MB partition, yes, but that's far smaller than the file system keeps.

That's only in Windows 7 iirc, not Windows Vista, and it's where the boot manager is installed by default. It's got nothing to do with the file system.

(back ontopic) My second PC: 158 GB
My laptop: 98 GB

Server 1: 80GB SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.7
Server 2: 20GB ATA Seagate U5 Series 5400RPM and 2x 40GB ATA Seagate U6 Series 5400RPM [RAID 1 - Striped]
Main/Gaming PC: 80GB SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and 500GB USB2 Western Digital Caviar Green External (WD Elements)
PowerBook G4: 80GB ATA Hitachi Travelstar (5400RPM?)
eMac G4: 80GB ATA Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM
XBOX 360: 60GB :/
PS3: 500GB (Western Digital Scorpio Blue I think)

Lying around, I have an ATA 40GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM drive which I might use on an old Pentium 2 and use it as another server. As for my main server, I might host a public Garry's Mod Dedicated Server on it.

I couldn't believe it, My 40 Gb. U Series 5 died yesterday. It monitored all healthy with SMART and the temp was only about 90 degrees (32.2 C.). I am starting to wonder if I should find a new hard drive to install into my desktop to replace the 80 Gb. Seagate because of this crash, the one I had that died from over heating and all the problems Andy's had with them...

server: 80gb + 40gb
backup: 80gb + 160Gb
Ibook: 60gb
Powermac g5: 250gb
powermac G4 quicksilver: 160gb (but it only sees 128gb)
Powermac G3 b/w: 15Gb
Macmini G4: 120Gb
powermac 8600: 1gb + 2gb
Imac G3: 80Gb
hp 6910p: 80gb
dell laptop: 6gb (got it with a failed hdd and was the only one that i had that matched)
advent 4211 (hackintosh): 500gb
acer d150: 160gb
Mac plus: 250mb
I think thats all i have

Desktop ( Inspiron 580) : 1TB

I've probably posted my laptop and external's hard drive size before, but just incase :

External : 500GB
Laptop : 150GB

Laptop:
Internal: 250 GB WD 2,5"
External: 1000 GB TrekStor 3,5"

"Old" PC:
Internal: 160 GB 3,5"