How to use the data storage converter
- Type a value in either box. Decimals with a comma or a point both work.
- Choose the units on each side, or press the arrows to swap them.
- The table below shows the value in every unit at once. Click a row to convert to that unit.
About data size units
There are two families of storage units. The decimal ones (KB, MB, GB, TB) step by 1,000, like SI prefixes everywhere else: 1 GB is 1,000 MB, or 1,000,000,000 bytes. The binary ones (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB) step by 1,024: 1 GiB is 1,024 MiB, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.
Drive makers label capacity in decimal units, but Windows counts in binary units while still writing "GB". That is why a 1 TB drive shows up as about 931 GB: 10¹² bytes divided by 2³⁰ bytes per GiB is 931.32. No space is missing. The same bytes are counted in bigger units.
The binary names were introduced by the IEC in 1998 to end the confusion, though many programs still write MB or GB for binary sizes. A byte is 8 bits in both systems.
Popular data size conversions
Data size units
| Unit | Symbol | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Bits | bit | 1 bit = 0.125 B |
| Bytes | B | The base unit |
| Kilobytes | KB | 1 KB = 1,000 B |
| Megabytes | MB | 1 MB = 1,000,000 B |
| Gigabytes | GB | 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 B |
| Terabytes | TB | 1 TB = 1,000,000,000,000 B |
| Petabytes | PB | 1 PB = 1,000,000,000,000,000 B |
| Kibibytes | KiB | 1 KiB = 1,024 B |
| Mebibytes | MiB | 1 MiB = 1,048,576 B |
| Gibibytes | GiB | 1 GiB = 1,073,741,824 B |
| Tebibytes | TiB | 1 TiB = 1,099,511,627,776 B |
| Pebibytes | PiB | 1 PiB = 1,125,899,906,842,620 B |
Converting something else? The unit converter covers every kind of unit in one place.