Actual USB drive capacity vs. advertised size

Ugh, sorry if I’m repeating something already said here—I couldn't find anything similar while scrolling... Honestly, call it dumb luck or just me being an idiot, you decide.
So, I picked up a 16GB Kingston USB drive specifically to move a PC game that’s 14.4GB in size. In my head, I figured a 16GB stick would be plenty. I mean, sure, I know "16GB" isn't the actual usable space, but I assumed it would only be short by maybe 500MB at most. Well, guess what? The actual capacity on this 16GB stick is exactly 14.3GB. That means I am short by 100MB. Just 100MB! I'm sure everyone thinks this is 🤣 hilarious, except for me. What now? If I compress the game, will it even work later? And can you even do that with an ISO file? Either way, I think it's absolutely ridiculous that they don't list the actual usable storage available.

You’re looking at a formatted capacity of about 14.9 GB—that’s really the ceiling for what you can expect. I’ve got three Pirates sticks myself that hit that maxed-out mark perfectly—so, 14.9 GB per drive, or 29.8 GB if you're running a 32 GB stick—but then I’ve also got a Kingmax and a SanDisk lying around that don't quite "deliver" the full advertised capacity. It just goes to show—it all depends on the manufacturer, I guess. Anyway, what's the actual plan here—you trying to run a game directly off that stick?😕

Benjamin King2 said:You’re looking at a formatted capacity of about 14.9 GB—that’s really the ceiling for what you can expect. I’ve got three Pirates sticks myself that hit that maxed-out mark perfectly—so, 14.9 GB per drive, or 29.8 GB if you're running a 32 GB stick—but then I’ve also got a Kingmax and a SanDisk lying around that don't quite "deliver" the full advertised capacity. It just goes to show—it all depends on the manufacturer, I guess. Anyway, what's the actual plan here—you trying to run a game directly off that stick?😕

I was thinking about just moving it to another PC and mounting it so I don't have to deal with downloading everything all over again or messing around with burning DVDs.

Look, just try running that ISO through 7-Zip—compress it, move it over to another machine, and then decompress it there. 7-Zip’s compression algorithm is actually solid—it should be able to shave off that extra 100 MB without breaking a sweat.