Data Storage Converter

How Does the Formula Work?

The data storage converter turns one value into all 12 units at once, from bits to petabytes, in both the decimal system (SI, base 1000) and the binary one (IEC, base 1024). Type a value, pick its unit, and every row updates as you type. It shows why a 1 TB drive appears as about 931 GiB in an operating system that counts in binary, and how a speed in Mbps relates to a file size in MB.

The Binary vs Decimal Confusion

Storage makers state capacity in decimal units, where 1 GB is exactly 1,000,000,000 bytes. An operating system that divides by 1024 at each step shows the same bytes in binary units, where 1 GiB is 1,073,741,824 bytes. So a drive labeled 1 TB holds 1,000,000,000,000 bytes and appears as about 931 GiB, and a 2 TB drive appears as about 1.82 TiB. No space is missing; the same bytes are counted with a different base. This converter shows both systems side by side.

Bits vs Bytes in Internet Speed

Internet speeds are measured in bits per second (Mbps, Gbps) and file sizes in bytes (MB, GB). Because 1 byte equals 8 bits, a 100 Mbps connection transfers at most 12.5 MB per second (100 ÷ 8). The converter handles bits and bytes alongside every other unit, so both sides of the relationship are in one place.

IEC Binary Prefixes

To resolve the binary vs decimal confusion, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) approved names and symbols for binary prefixes in December 1998 and published them in January 1999 as Amendment 2 to IEC 60027-2; the current edition of that vocabulary is IEC 80000-13. The prefixes are kibibyte (KiB, 1024 bytes), mebibyte (MiB, 1024²), gibibyte (GiB, 1024³), tebibyte (TiB, 1024⁴), and pebibyte (PiB, 1024⁵). These unambiguously refer to powers of 1024, while KB, MB, GB, TB strictly mean powers of 1000 under SI standards. This converter shows both systems simultaneously so there is never any ambiguity about which base is being used.

How the Numbers Are Shown

Each row is worked out from the exact value you typed and rounded once. Values of 1 or more show up to six decimals, values below 1 show six significant digits, so 1.5 KB reads 0.0000015 GB and 0.00000139698 GiB, and values below 0.000001 are written with an exponent. Whole numbers keep every digit, however long they get.