[HTC Sensation XL] adazamim:
Ahlan,

I wanted to share this with xda-developers forum, as I have seen the same question repeated on various forums.

This is about how 8.8 Gigabytes shows, when the HTC sensation XL is supposed to have 16 Gigabytes on.

HTC SensationXL has the specs of:

“Total Storage”: 16 Gigabytes (Actual calculated value is 14.90 Gigabytes)

“Available Storage”: Upto 12.64 Gigabytes (And this is the Actual calculated value)

“Total Storage” = “Available Storage” + “ROM Storage”

“Available Storage” = “Phone Storage” + “Internal Storage”

“Total Actual Storage” = “Phone Actual Storage” + “Internal Actual Storage” + “ROM Actual Storage”

14.90 Gigabytes = 8.89 Gigabytes + 3.75 Gigabytes + 2.26 Gigabytes

Where:

“Total Actual Storage” = Is the total calculated storage of the phone.

“Phone Actual Storage” = Is the calculated storage assigned for media files.

“Internal Actual Storage” = Is the calculated storage assigned for apps and apps data.

“Rom storage” = Is the calculated storage consumed by Operating system files (Android Gingerbread 2.3.5), user interface files (HTC Sense 3.5) and pre-installed apps (facebook, twittes, dictionary, HTC watch and all other apps you find installed on your phone when you first buy it)

Description of above mentioned terms is on the following

HTC SensationXL, is somehow special in the way it allocates the storage it has.

HTC SensationXL has no slot for external MicroSD card.

HTC has come up with a new phrase called “Phones Storage” to differentiate it from “Internal Storage”.

“Internal Storage”

- is a part of SensationXL total storage.

- is inaccessible if you plug your phone to your computer via USB.

- is assigned to contain apps you install or side load and to contain apps data.

Contacts are managed and stored by an HTC App Called “People”; data is stored to “Internal Storage”

SMSs are managed and stored by an HTC App Called “Messages”; data is stored to “Internal Storage”

E-Mails are managed and stored by an HTC App Called “Mail”; data is stored to “Internal Storage”

“Phone Storage”

- is a part of SensationXL total storage.

- is the storage you can access via USB-cable when connected to your PC.

- is assigned to include Media files you import from computer via USB-Cable or download to your phone from the internet.

Music files, Video files, Picture files and Office Files are stored to “Phone Storage”

Now, other terms should be highlighted.

"Nominal Storage” and “Actual Storage”

"Nominal Storage”

It’s the storage capacity you find written on any flash memory (actually any solid state storage, flash memory or large capacity storage).

That’s 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB.

"Nominal Storage” always follows the Metric Measuring.

On metric measuring: 1 Kbyte=1000 bytes, 1 Megabyte= 1000 Kbyte, 1 Gigabyte= 1000 Megabyte.

“Actual Storage”

It’s the actual calculated number of bytes.

Stating the fact that: 1 Kbyte=1024 bytes, 1 Megabyte= 1024 Kbyte, 1 Gigabyte= 1024 Megabyte.

Now to simplify things:

“Actual Storage” = 0.9313 x "Nominal Storage”

Example:

2 Gigabytes "Nominal Storage” is ACTUALLY 1.8626 Gigabytes (2 x 0.9313 = 1.8626)

16 Gigabytes "Nominal Storage” is ACTUALLY 14.9008 Gigabytes (2 x 0.9313 = 14.9008)

Hope above helps :)