Mebi, Gibi, Mega- and Gigabyte: That is the difference

In this practical tip you will find out where the differences lie between Mebi-Gibi, Mega- and Gigabyte. The different units are very easy to see through.

Mebi, Gibi, Mega- and Gigabyte: that's the difference

You have probably heard a sentence from a technology salesperson like "This is a one gigabyte USB stick, so there are 1024 megabytes inside". Unfortunately, that's not true. We will clarify what the different sizes are all about.

• As in physics, prefixes such as Mega, Giga or Kilo are used in connection with decimal numbers. 1 kilobyte (kB) is 1, 000 bytes, 1, 000 kB is 1 megabyte (MB), etc. So the kilobyte consists of 1, 000 bytes, the megabyte of 1, 000² bytes, the gigabyte (GB) of 1, 000³ and the terabyte (TB) 1, 000⁴ bytes. In the future, computers will work with much more exorbitant amounts of data. 1, 000⁵ bytes correspond to a petabyte (PB), 1, 000⁶ bytes correspond to an exabyte (EB), 1, 000⁷ bytes correspond to a zettabyte (ZB) and 1, 000⁸ bytes correspond to a yottabyte (YB).
• However, since the computer works with binary numbers, the number 1024 (2¹⁰) is used instead of 1, 000. So that you can distinguish these numbers, a "bi" is built into the size information.
• Accordingly, 1, 024 bytes are exactly one kibibyte (KiB). 1, 024 KiB are again a mebibyte (MiB). The Gibibyte again consists of 1, 024 MiB, or rather 1, 024³ bytes. 1, 024⁴ bytes are a Tebibyte (TiB), 1, 024⁵ bytes are a Pebibyte (PiB), 1, 024⁶ an Exbibyte (EiB), 1, 024⁷ a Zebibyte (ZiB) and finally 1, 024⁸ bytes are a Yobibyte (YiB).

Your Windows version: 32 bit or 64 bit? Here's how to find out

In the next practical tip, we will show you how you can easily convert floating point numbers.