Data Size Converter (KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB)

Converts data into bits, bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB and their binary counterparts KiB, MiB, GiB and TiB. A KB is 1000 bytes while a KiB is 1024 bytes: they are different units.

Explanation

Enter an amount of data and choose its unit, and every other unit follows. Gigabytes convert to gibibytes exactly as easily as bits convert to bytes.

Two kinds of kilo

Data sizes come in two families, decimal and binary.

1 KB=1000 bytes1 KiB=210=1024 bytes1\ \text{KB} = 1000\ \text{bytes} \qquad 1\ \text{KiB} = 2^{10} = 1024\ \text{bytes}

Example

Convert 1 GB.

1 GB=109 bytes=109230=0.9313 GiB1\ \text{GB} = 10^9\ \text{bytes} = \dfrac{10^9}{2^{30}} = 0.9313\ \text{GiB}

In bits that is eight billion.

"My 1 TB drive only shows 931 GB"

This is where the distinction earns its keep.

Drive manufacturers sell in decimal: 1 TB = 10¹² bytes. Windows, however, counts in binary tebibytes while still printing the label "TB".

1012240=0.9095\dfrac{10^{12}}{2^{40}} = 0.9095

So a 1 TB drive reports as 931 GB. Nothing has gone missing; the same bytes are being measured with a different ruler.

Bits and bytes

One byte is 8 bits. Network speeds are quoted in bits per second while file sizes are in bytes, a factor of eight apart. Downloading a 100 MB file over a 100 Mbps line takes eight seconds even in theory.