Data Storage Converter

This data storage converter converts between the most common digital storage units in both the SI decimal system and the IEC binary system: bits, bytes, kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), terabytes (TB), petabytes (PB), kibibytes (KiB), mebibytes (MiB), gibibytes (GiB), and tebibytes (TiB). The distinction between SI and binary matters because storage hardware manufacturers use SI definitions where 1 GB equals exactly 1,000,000,000 bytes, while operating systems like Windows have traditionally reported storage using binary definitions where 1 GiB equals 1,073,741,824 bytes. This is why a hard drive labelled 1 TB appears as approximately 931 GiB in Windows. The converter uses bits as its internal reference: all inputs are converted to bits using exact multiplication, and all outputs are derived from that bits figure. Eight bits make one byte, and all other conversions follow exactly from there. You select the unit you are starting from, enter a value, and all ten other equivalents appear immediately in both columns. The tool is useful for understanding why a drive appears smaller than labelled, for comparing file size specifications across different platforms, for network bandwidth calculations (which use bits), and for storage planning. This tool does not distinguish between decimal kilobytes (1,000 bytes) and the older ambiguous KB that sometimes meant 1,024 bytes; it follows the IEC 80000-13 standard strictly for binary prefixes.

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