Convert between bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, and more. Supports both decimal (KB, MB) and binary (KiB, MiB) units.
2026-03-28T00:00:00Z
A byte is a unit of digital information that consists of 8 bits. It's the fundamental building block for measuring data storage and transfer in computing. One byte can represent 256 different values (2^8), enough to store a single character in ASCII encoding.
As data grows, we use larger units: kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), terabytes (TB), and petabytes (PB). However, there's an important distinction between decimal units (base-1000) and binary units (base-1024). The decimal system is used for marketing storage devices, while binary units reflect how computers actually organize memory.
For example, a "1 TB" hard drive advertised by manufacturers (1,000,000,000,000 bytes) shows up as about 931 GiB in your operating system because computers use the binary definition (1 TiB = 1,024^4 bytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes).
Used by: Hard drive manufacturers, network speeds, SI standard
Used by: Operating systems, RAM, actual computer memory
Convert 1024 MB to GB:
Manufacturers use decimal (1 TB = 1,000 GB) while operating systems use binary (1 TiB = 1,024 GiB). A 1 TB drive has 1 trillion bytes, which equals 931 GiB in binary. This is normal, not a defect.
Use decimal (KB, MB, GB) when discussing storage devices, network speeds, or file sizes in marketing. Use binary (KiB, MiB, GiB) when working with RAM, system memory, or technical specifications in programming.
Mb (lowercase 'b') = megabit, MB (uppercase 'B') = megabyte. Since 1 byte = 8 bits, 1 MB = 8 Mb. Internet speeds use Mb/s (megabits per second), while file sizes use MB (megabytes).
It depends on usage: Documents need KB-MB, photos need MB, videos need GB, and large collections or 4K video need TB. Cloud storage and external drives can supplement internal storage.
Technically yes, but it causes confusion. Stick to one system per context. Operating systems typically show binary, while marketing uses decimal. This calculator handles both and converts between them.
A petabyte (PB) is 1,000 terabytes or 1 million gigabytes. It's used for massive data centers, scientific research, and enterprise storage. For reference, 1 PB could store ~500 billion pages of text.
Computers use binary (base-2) because digital circuits have two states: on/off, true/false, 1/0. Powers of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024...) align with how computers organize and address memory.
Both are correct in different contexts! 1000 (decimal) is the SI standard, while 1024 (binary) reflects computer architecture. The IEC introduced KiB, MiB, GiB to distinguish, but confusion persists.
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