Question about Sansa Clip 4 GB capacity

I just got a new Sansa Clip 4 GB.  When it’s empty, it says there is 3750 memory and 3704 free space.  Is it normal for it to be this far below 4 GB of storage capacity?

It’s very common across all storage devices to find disrepencies between the size quoted on the box and the size reported by the system it’s connected to. For example, my ‘32GB’ Sansa View reports ‘31100MB’. If you look reported capacity your hard drives on your computer, it’s unlikely it will be exactly 100GB (or whatever the feature list stated), but bit less. It’s just something you get used to; you’re being no more cheated that the rest of us :robothappy:

System files and the FAT formatting use up space. FAT (DOS) formatting is very inefficient. Remember 3.5 floppy diskettes? Those were 2mb disks. After DOS formatting they were down to 1.4mb. If they were used in a setup for data logging when a DOS format was not required, you could use the full 2mb.

It’s almost entirely because of the difference in methods used to calculate just what a “gigabyte” is. Formatting takes an almost negligible amount of capacity, and system files (except for firmware, which has its own storage space independent of the player’s main memory) show up just the same as user files.

Disagreement over the size of a gigabyte.

@joe786 wrote:

I just got a new Sansa Clip 4 GB.  When it’s empty, it says there is 3750 memory and 3704 free space.  Is it normal for it to be this far below 4 GB of storage capacity?

Is it really empty–are the original songs from SanDisk still there?

@miikerman wrote:


@joe786 wrote:

I just got a new Sansa Clip 4 GB.  When it’s empty, it says there is 3750 memory and 3704 free space.  Is it normal for it to be this far below 4 GB of storage capacity?


Is it really empty–are the original songs from SanDisk still there?

All of the music that came preloaded on the player has been removed.