About

Misidentifying binary vs. decimal prefixes causes real data loss. A drive advertised as 1 TB (decimal, 10¹² bytes) appears as roughly 931 GiB in an operating system that counts in powers of 1024. The discrepancy - approximately 7.4% per prefix tier - compounds through storage planning, bandwidth billing, and network throughput calculations. This converter operates on the IEC 80000-13 and SI standards: 1 byte = 8 bits, binary prefixes use 2¹⁰ (1024) steps, decimal prefixes use 10³ (1000) steps. It preserves up to 15 significant digits to avoid IEEE 754 floating-point truncation at large scales.

Formulas

Every data unit maps to a base count in bits. Conversion between any two units passes through this common base:

R = V × F_fromF_to

Where R = result value in the target unit, V = input value, F_from = number of bits per one unit of the source type, F_to = number of bits per one unit of the target type.

The fundamental relationship is 1 byte = 8 bits. Binary (IEC) prefixes increment by 2¹⁰ = 1024 per tier. Decimal (SI) prefixes increment by 10³ = 1000 per tier. The percentage gap between a decimal and binary unit at the same prefix level is:

Δ = 1 − 10³ⁿ2¹⁰ⁿ

Where n = prefix tier (1 for kilo/kibi, 2 for mega/mebi, etc.). At n = 1, the gap is 2.4%. At n = 3 (giga/gibi), it reaches 7.4%.

Reference Data

Unit	Symbol	Standard	Equivalent in Bits	Base
Bit	b	SI	1	-
Nibble	nibble	Common	4	-
Byte	B	SI	8	-
Kilobit	kb	SI (decimal)	1,000	10³
Kibibit	Kib	IEC (binary)	1,024	2¹⁰
Kilobyte	kB	SI (decimal)	8,000	10³ × 8
Kibibyte	KiB	IEC (binary)	8,192	2¹⁰ × 8
Megabit	Mb	SI (decimal)	1,000,000	10⁶
Mebibit	Mib	IEC (binary)	1,048,576	2²⁰
Megabyte	MB	SI (decimal)	8,000,000	10⁶ × 8
Mebibyte	MiB	IEC (binary)	8,388,608	2²⁰ × 8
Gigabit	Gb	SI (decimal)	1,000,000,000	10⁹
Gibibit	Gib	IEC (binary)	1,073,741,824	2³⁰
Gigabyte	GB	SI (decimal)	8,000,000,000	10⁹ × 8
Gibibyte	GiB	IEC (binary)	8,589,934,592	2³⁰ × 8
Terabit	Tb	SI (decimal)	10¹²	10¹²
Tebibit	Tib	IEC (binary)	1,099,511,627,776	2⁴⁰
Terabyte	TB	SI (decimal)	8 × 10¹²	10¹² × 8
Tebibyte	TiB	IEC (binary)	8,796,093,022,208	2⁴⁰ × 8
Petabit	Pb	SI (decimal)	10¹⁵	10¹⁵
Pebibit	Pib	IEC (binary)	2⁵⁰	2⁵⁰
Petabyte	PB	SI (decimal)	8 × 10¹⁵	10¹⁵ × 8
Pebibyte	PiB	IEC (binary)	8 × 2⁵⁰	2⁵⁰ × 8
Exabit	Eb	SI (decimal)	10¹⁸	10¹⁸
Exbibit	Eib	IEC (binary)	2⁶⁰	2⁶⁰
Exabyte	EB	SI (decimal)	8 × 10¹⁸	10¹⁸ × 8
Exbibyte	EiB	IEC (binary)	8 × 2⁶⁰	2⁶⁰ × 8

Frequently Asked Questions

Drive manufacturers label capacity using SI (decimal) prefixes: 1 TB = 10¹² bytes. Operating systems (Windows, Linux) report in binary (IEC) units: 1 GiB = 2³⁰ = 1,073,741,824 bytes. Dividing 10¹² by 1,073,741,824 yields approximately 931.32 GiB. No data is missing. The discrepancy is purely a labeling conflict between two standards.

1 kB (kilobyte, SI) = 1,000 bytes. 1 KiB (kibibyte, IEC 80000-13) = 1,024 bytes. The IEC introduced binary prefixes (kibi, mebi, gibi) in 1998 to eliminate ambiguity. In practice, many systems still use "KB" to mean 1,024 bytes. This converter treats them according to their standard definitions.

Telecommunications historically transmitted data bit-by-bit over serial links. The convention persisted. A 100 Mbps connection delivers a maximum of 100,000,000 bits per second, which equals 12.5 MB/s (decimal megabytes) or approximately 11.92 MiB/s (mebibytes). Always divide advertised speed by 8 to estimate file transfer rates, then subtract protocol overhead (typically 5 - 10%).

JavaScript uses IEEE 754 double-precision floats, which provide 15 - 17 significant decimal digits. An exabyte is approximately 1.15 × 10¹⁸ bytes (binary). This sits near the edge of safe integer range (2⁵³ = 9.007 × 10¹⁵). For values above a few petabytes expressed in bits, individual bit-level precision is lost. This converter displays up to 15 significant figures and uses scientific notation for extremely large results to communicate precision limits honestly.

Divide by 8. The relationship 1 B = 8 b is universal and does not depend on binary vs. decimal prefixes. So 1 Gbps = 125 MB/s (decimal) or approximately 119.21 MiB/s (binary). This converter handles the prefix math automatically; select the source and target units and the factor of 8 is applied internally.

Yes. A nibble equals 4 bits (half a byte). It represents one hexadecimal digit (0 - F). Nibbles are commonly used in low-level programming, hex editors, and BCD (Binary-Coded Decimal) arithmetic. Select "Nibble" from the unit dropdown to convert to or from any other data unit.