There is an error in your textbook (S&G, 4th edition plus some printings of S&G, 5th edition). It is corrected in the 6th edition, p. 431. What it says: (5th edition, p. 383 near bottom) "A 1.3-gigabyte disk with 512-byte blocks would need a bit map of over 310K to track its free blocks." It should say: "A 1.3-gigabyte disk with 512-byte blocks would need a bit map of over 332Kb to track its free blocks." Reasoning: Disk Size: 1.3 G bytes = 1.3 * 2^30 bytes Block Size: 512 bytes = 2^9 bytes # of Blocks: = disk size / block size = 1.3 * 2^30 bytes / 2^9 bytes = 1.3 * 2^21 # of entries in bit table = # of blocks = 1.3 * 2^21 Size of bit table in bits = 1.3 * 2^21 bits Size of bit table in bytes = size in bits / (8 bits/byte) = 1.3 * 2^21 / 8 bytes = 1.3 * 2^21 / 2^3 bytes = 1.3 * 2^18 bytes = 1.3 * 2^8 * 2^10 bytes = 1.3 * 256 * K bytes = 332.8 K bytes = 332.8K bytes