Use this Data Unit Converter to convert between bits, bytes, decimal units such as kB, MB, GB and TB, and binary units such as KiB, MiB, GiB and TiB.

Conversion Method

Each data unit can be expressed in bits. The general formula is:

Converted value = input value × bits in source unit ÷ bits in target unit

One byte contains exactly 8 bits:

1 B = 8 bits

Decimal units use powers of 1,000:

• 1 kB = 1,000 bytes
• 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes
• 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes

IEC binary units use powers of 1,024:

• 1 KiB = 1,024 bytes
• 1 MiB = 1,048,576 bytes
• 1 GiB = 1,073,741,824 bytes

Example

Convert 1 GB to GiB.

1 GB contains 1,000,000,000 bytes, while 1 GiB contains 1,073,741,824 bytes.

1,000,000,000 ÷ 1,073,741,824 ≈ 0.9313

Therefore:

1 GB ≈ 0.9313 GiB

Important Note

Bits and bytes are different: lowercase b means bit, while uppercase B means byte.

MB and MiB are also different. MB is a decimal unit based on powers of 1,000, while MiB is a binary unit based on powers of 1,024. This difference can explain why the same storage quantity may appear as different numerical values in different systems.

This converter calculates data quantity only. It does not calculate download speed, upload speed, or transfer time.

Sources

• NIST — Prefixes for Binary Multiples
• BIPM — SI Decimal Prefixes