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Calculator Answers

Data Storage Converter

Blake Boege
Written by Blake Boege · Founder, Calculator Answers

A data storage converter is a digital measurement utility that translates digital information quantities between different units of storage and bandwidth. The converter supports conversions across bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, and petabytes, using both the decimal base-ten (KB, MB, GB) and binary base-two (KiB, MiB, GiB) systems. It applies standard digital storage scale factors to ensure accuracy. Software developers, network engineers, IT professionals, and students use this tool to estimate storage capacities and verify bandwidth speeds.

Pick a 'from' unit, a 'to' unit, and enter a size. The calculator returns the converted size plus equivalents in every supported decimal and binary unit.

Quick Answer

Convert digital data sizes between bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes. Enter your value and select units to calculate decimal and binary equivalents.

Size in your chosen unit. · e.g. 1

Decimal units (KB, MB, GB, TB, PB) use powers of 1,000. Binary units (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, PiB) use powers of 1,024. Storage manufacturers use decimal; many operating systems show binary while labeling them KB/MB/GB.

Data storage

Gigabyte → Gibibyte

0.93132257 GIB

1 GB = 0.93132257 GIB

Byte (B)1,000,000,000 B
Kilobyte (KB, 1,000 B)1,000,000 KB
Megabyte (MB, 1,000 KB)1,000 MB
Gigabyte (GB, 1,000 MB)1 GB
Terabyte (TB, 1,000 GB)0.001 TB
Petabyte (PB, 1,000 TB)1.0000e-6 PB
Kibibyte (KiB, 1,024 B)976,562.5 KIB
Mebibyte (MiB, 1,024 KiB)953.674316 MIB
Gibibyte (GiB, 1,024 MiB)0.93132257 GIB
Tebibyte (TiB, 1,024 GiB)0.00090949 TIB
Pebibyte (PiB, 1,024 TiB)8.8818e-7 PIB

Decimal: 1 KB = 1,000 B · 1 MB = 1,000,000 B · 1 GB = 1 billion B. Binary: 1 KiB = 1,024 B · 1 MiB ≈ 1.049 MB · 1 GiB ≈ 1.074 GB. Drive labels are decimal; many OSes display binary while writing KB/MB/GB.

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Examples

1 GB to GiB

≈ 0.9313 GiB

1 TiB to GB

≈ 1,099.51 GB

500 MB to MiB

≈ 476.84 MiB

How it works

Two parallel unit systems exist. Decimal units use powers of 1,000 (KB, MB, GB, TB, PB). Binary units use powers of 1,024 (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, PiB). The calculator stores every unit as a byte factor and converts through bytes.

Decimal · 1 KB = 1,000 B · 1 MB = 1,000 KB · 1 GB = 1,000 MB · ...

Binary · 1 KiB = 1,024 B · 1 MiB = 1,024 KiB · 1 GiB = 1,024 MiB · ...

Bits use lowercase b (Mb, Gb). 1 byte = 8 bits. Internet speeds quoted in Mb/s; divide by 8 for MB/s.

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Frequently asked questions

KB (kilobyte) is decimal: 1 KB = 1,000 bytes. KiB (kibibyte) is binary: 1 KiB = 1,024 bytes. The decimal prefixes (k, M, G, T, P) follow the SI standard. The binary prefixes (Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti, Pi) were standardized by IEC in 1998 to disambiguate. The gap grows: 1 TiB ≈ 1.0995 TB.

It depends. Windows historically displays binary sizes labeled as KB/MB/GB (so a '500 GB drive' shows about 465 GB free in Windows). macOS since 10.6 (2009) displays decimal sizes that match the drive label. Linux varies by tool. Storage manufacturers always use decimal: a 1 TB drive is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes.

Manufacturers count in decimal (1 TB = 10^12 bytes). Many file managers count in binary (1 GiB = 2^30 bytes) but label the result 'GB'. So 10^12 bytes shows as 10^12 ÷ 2^30 ≈ 931 binary 'GB'. The drive isn't smaller than advertised; the units are inconsistent.

Probably not for everyday questions. If you're comparing what you bought to what you see, the decimal-to-binary difference is the explanation. For programming or systems work where exact byte counts matter, use the binary units (KiB, MiB, GiB) explicitly.

Lowercase 'b' is bits, not bytes. 1 byte = 8 bits. Internet speeds are usually quoted in Mb/s (megabits per second), so a 100 Mb/s connection transfers about 12.5 MB/s (megabytes per second). This calculator handles bytes, not bits. Divide by 8 if you have bits.

They exist (EB, ZB, YB and their binary counterparts EiB, ZiB, YiB), but they are well beyond consumer-scale data. The calculator stops at petabytes to keep the unit list focused. Multiply by 1,000 for each step up: 1 EB = 1,000 PB, 1 ZB = 1,000 EB, etc.