History & Background
Computer memory has always been built in powers of two, leading to the "1024-byte kilobyte". In 1998 the IEC introduced the binary prefixes (kibi-, mebi-, gibi-) to disambiguate, but most consumer software still uses K/M/G ambiguously.
Conversion Formulas
1 KB = 1,024 bytes (binary) or 1,000 bytes (decimal)1 MB = 1,048,576 bytes (binary) = 1024 KB1 GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes = 1024 MB1 TB = 1024 GB ≈ 1.1 trillion bytes
Common Values
- 1 GB = 1,024 MB ≈ 1 billion bytes
- 1 TB = 1,024 GB
- 4K movie ≈ 25 GB
- 1 hour HD video ≈ 3 GB
- 1,000 photos (12 MP) ≈ 5 GB
Common Uses
- Cloud storage planning
- Mobile data plan budgeting
- Backup and archive sizing
- Network bandwidth calculations
- Database capacity planning
Practical Tips
- Why does a "1 TB" drive show only 931 GB? The manufacturer uses decimal TB (10¹²), Windows reports binary TB (2⁴⁰).
- Network speeds are in bits (Mbps) — divide by 8 to get bytes per second.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many MB in a GB?
1,024 MB (binary) or 1,000 MB (decimal).
Why does my 1 TB drive show only 931 GB?
The manufacturer counts in decimal (10¹²), the OS reports in binary (2⁴⁰). The data is identical, only the label differs.
Bits vs bytes?
1 byte = 8 bits. Network speeds are in bits per second (Mbps), file sizes are in bytes (MB).
What is a yottabyte?
1 YB = 10²⁴ bytes — more storage than the entire current internet.