Data Storage Converter

A data storage converter turns bytes into kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes — and it keeps the two different meanings of those words apart. A kilobyte can mean 1,000 bytes or 1,024, depending on who is talking: drive manufacturers sell in powers of ten, while operating systems report in powers of two. That single disagreement is why a 1 TB disk shows up as about 931 GB in Windows, with no data missing and nothing wrong. Both conventions are listed here by name, so you can convert honestly in either. Everything runs in your browser.

How to use it

1. Choose the unit you have and the unit you want.
2. Units marked (1000) are decimal — kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes as a drive manufacturer means them.
3. Units marked (1024) are binary — kibibytes, mebibytes, gibibytes, tebibytes, as an operating system counts them.
4. Type the amount and the answer appears as you type, through bytes as the base unit.

Examples

• 1 kilobyte = 1,000 bytes; 1 kibibyte = 1,024 bytes.
• 1 gigabyte = 1,000 megabytes = 1,000,000,000 bytes.
• 1 terabyte = 931.323 gibibytes — the disk-size discrepancy.
• 1 mebibyte = 1,048,576 bytes.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my 1 TB hard drive show as 931 GB?

Because the drive was sold in decimal units and your operating system is counting in binary ones. The manufacturer means 1 terabyte as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, which is a perfectly reasonable reading of the prefix tera. Windows then divides by 1,024 three times rather than 1,000, and displays 931 — while still labelling it GB. No space is missing and nothing is faulty: the drive holds exactly what was sold, and the two systems are counting it differently. Apple and most Linux systems switched to decimal reporting years ago, which is why the same drive shows a friendlier number there.

What is the difference between a megabyte and a mebibyte?

A megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes and a mebibyte is 1,048,576 — that is 1,024 squared. The binary names, kibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte and tebibyte, were introduced in 1998 precisely to end this ambiguity, giving the powers of two their own words so that kilo, mega and giga could keep their ordinary decimal meanings. They never fully caught on in everyday speech, so most people still say megabyte for both and rely on context. This page lists them separately so you never have to guess which one a figure meant.

How many bytes are in a gigabyte?

1,000,000,000 bytes in a decimal gigabyte, and 1,073,741,824 in a binary gibibyte. The gap is about 7%, and it widens as the units get larger: at the kilobyte level the two conventions differ by 2.4%, at the megabyte level by 4.9%, at the gigabyte level by 7.4% and at the terabyte level by 10%. That widening is exactly why the missing space on a hard drive looks worse the bigger the drive gets.

Which one should I use, the 1000 or the 1024 version?

Match whatever produced the number. Storage and network figures from manufacturers and internet providers are decimal, so use the (1000) units. Figures reported by Windows file properties, and by most memory sizes, are binary, so use the (1024) units. RAM is the reliable exception in the other direction: memory really is manufactured in powers of two, so a 16 GB stick genuinely is 16 gibibytes. If you are comparing two figures and they differ by roughly 7%, you are almost certainly looking at the same amount counted two ways.

How many photos fit in a gigabyte?

It depends entirely on the camera, so treat any single number as a rough guide. A JPEG from a modern phone is commonly 2 to 5 MB, which puts roughly 200 to 500 photos in a decimal gigabyte. A raw file from a dedicated camera is often 20 to 40 MB, giving perhaps 25 to 50 per gigabyte. Video changes the arithmetic completely — a minute of 4K footage can be several hundred megabytes on its own. If you want a real figure for your own files, check the size of a typical one and divide.