What's the difference between MB and MiB?

MB is decimal: 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes. MiB is binary: 1 MiB = 1,048,576 bytes. The gap is about 4.9% at megabyte scale and grows to roughly 10% at gigabyte scale, which is why drive capacities seem to shrink in the OS.

Which standard do hard drives and SSDs use?

Drive manufacturers use the decimal standard, so a 500 GB SSD has 500,000,000,000 bytes. Windows reports the same drive as 465 GB because it uses binary math but labels it GB instead of GiB.

Which standard does RAM use?

RAM is always binary. A 16 GB stick is actually 16 GiB (17,179,869,184 bytes). The spec sheet just drops the i. Network speeds, on the other hand, are decimal — a 1 Gbps link is 1,000,000,000 bits per second.

Is a megabit the same as a megabyte?

No. A byte is 8 bits, so 100 Mbps is only 12.5 MB per second. ISPs advertise speeds in bits to make them look bigger. Pick a bit unit (kbit, Mbit, Gbit) from the From unit dropdown if you want to enter bandwidth directly without doing the divide-by-8 yourself.

Why are PB conversions so large?

A petabyte is a million gigabytes. 1 PB equals 1,000,000 GB (decimal) or 1,048,576 GiB (binary). Useful for sizing large data lakes, but most personal contexts cap out at TB.

Data Storage Converter

Convert bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB, PB

Input

Value

Detect a file's size

Drop a file here to read its exact size — it never leaves your device.

Choose a file

Common sizes

From unit

Source value is treated as decimal (GB); GiB is shown alongside.

Decimal places4

Lower for readable summaries, higher for spreadsheet-grade precision.

Converted Values

GiB and GB differ by 7.37% — a drive sold in GB (decimal) shows fewer GiB (binary) in your file manager, which is why advertised capacity looks larger than the usable space.

UnitDecimal (1000)Binary (1024)

Bits

Decimal (1000)

8,000,000,000.0000 b

Binary (1024)

8,589,934,592.0000 b

Kilobits

Decimal (1000)

8,000,000.0000 kbit

Binary (1024)

8,388,608.0000 Kibit

Megabits

Decimal (1000)

8,000.0000 Mbit

Binary (1024)

8,192.0000 Mibit

Gigabits

Decimal (1000)

8.0000 Gbit

Binary (1024)

8.0000 Gibit

Terabits

Decimal (1000)

0.0080 Tbit

Binary (1024)

0.0078 Tibit

Petabits

Decimal (1000)

8.00000e-6 Pbit

Binary (1024)

7.62939e-6 Pibit

Bytes

Decimal (1000)

1,000,000,000.0000 B

Binary (1024)

1,073,741,824.0000 B

Kilobytes

Decimal (1000)

1,000,000.0000 KB

Binary (1024)

1,048,576.0000 KiB

Megabytes

Decimal (1000)

1,000.0000 MB

Binary (1024)

1,024.0000 MiB

Terabytes

Decimal (1000)

0.0010 TB

Binary (1024)

0.0010 TiB

Petabytes

Decimal (1000)

1.00000e-6 PB

Binary (1024)

9.53674e-7 PiB

This much storage holds about

250

phone photos

200

MP3 songs

20,000

documents

min of HD video

Decimal (1000)

Decimal uses 1000 bytes per KB — used by hard drive manufacturers, SSDs, and networking speeds.

Binary (1024)

Binary uses 1024 bytes per KiB — used by RAM, OS file sizes, and most software.

Transfer time

Roughly how long this size takes to move at common speeds (best case, no overhead).

10 Mbps DSL

13 min 20 s

100 Mbps cable

1 min 20 s

1 Gbps fiber

8 s

USB 3.0 (5 Gbps)

1.6 s

What is Data Storage Converter?

A data storage converter changes a value between digital storage units, from bytes up to petabytes. It covers everyday questions like how many megabytes are in a gigabyte, and handles both the binary (1024-based) and decimal (1000-based) standards.

The tool handles twelve units across bytes (B, KB, MB, GB, TB, PB) and bits (b, kbit, Mbit, Gbit, Tbit, Pbit), and shows every result in both decimal (1000-based) and binary (1024-based) columns at the same time. That side-by-side split is why a 1 TB drive shows as 931 GiB in your file manager, and why a 100 Mbps connection moves only 12.5 MB per second.

How to use

Enter a numeric value and select the source unit (bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB, or PB).
View every conversion at once: each row shows the decimal (KB, MB, GB) and binary (KiB, MiB, GiB) result side by side.
Drag the precision slider from 0 to 10 decimal places to match the level of detail you need.

When to use

Checking why your 2 TB drive only shows 1.8 TB of usable space.
Converting a download size given in MB into bytes for an API or config file.
Estimating how many GiB of RAM you actually have when the spec sheet says GB.

Result

Enter 1 TB: equals 1,000 GB (decimal) or 931.32 GiB (binary), 1,000,000 MB, or 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. Useful for understanding actual drive capacity vs advertised size.

FAQ

What's the difference between MB and MiB?: MB is decimal: 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes. MiB is binary: 1 MiB = 1,048,576 bytes. The gap is about 4.9% at megabyte scale and grows to roughly 10% at gigabyte scale, which is why drive capacities seem to shrink in the OS.
Which standard do hard drives and SSDs use?: Drive manufacturers use the decimal standard, so a 500 GB SSD has 500,000,000,000 bytes. Windows reports the same drive as 465 GB because it uses binary math but labels it GB instead of GiB.
Which standard does RAM use?: RAM is always binary. A 16 GB stick is actually 16 GiB (17,179,869,184 bytes). The spec sheet just drops the i. Network speeds, on the other hand, are decimal — a 1 Gbps link is 1,000,000,000 bits per second.
Is a megabit the same as a megabyte?: No. A byte is 8 bits, so 100 Mbps is only 12.5 MB per second. ISPs advertise speeds in bits to make them look bigger. Pick a bit unit (kbit, Mbit, Gbit) from the From unit dropdown if you want to enter bandwidth directly without doing the divide-by-8 yourself.
Why are PB conversions so large?: A petabyte is a million gigabytes. 1 PB equals 1,000,000 GB (decimal) or 1,048,576 GiB (binary). Useful for sizing large data lakes, but most personal contexts cap out at TB.

Data Storage Converter

Input

Converted Values

Transfer time

What is Data Storage Converter?

How to use

When to use

Result

FAQ

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