Exabytes to Kilobytes (EB to kB)
1 exabyte equals 1×10¹⁵ kilobytes exactly.
How to convert exabytes to kilobytes
To convert exabytes to kilobytes, multiply the number of exabytes by 1×10¹⁵. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilobytes by 1×10⁻¹⁵.
kilobytes = exabytes × 1×10¹⁵
Example: 10 exabytes = 1×10¹⁶ kilobytes.
Decimal prefixes (kB, MB, GB) are powers of 1,000; binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, GiB) are powers of 1,024. Storage makers use decimal; Windows reports binary but labels it GB.
About these units
Exabyte (EB)
1,000 petabytes (10¹⁸ bytes). Used for global internet traffic and very large data centers.
Exa comes from the SI prefix for the sixth power of 1,000, which the metric system adopted in 1975, so one exabyte is the decimal quantity 10^18 bytes, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. That is 1,000 petabytes, and it equals 8 x 10^18 bits. The symbol is EB, and it should not be confused with the binary exbibyte.
The exbibyte (EiB) is 2^60 bytes, which is 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes, about 15.3 percent more than an exabyte. Hard drive makers and networking use decimal definitions, so an exabyte is the usual unit for fleet-scale storage and traffic. Wikipedia illustrates the size as roughly global monthly internet traffic in 2004. By 2016 Cisco estimated global IP traffic at about 96 exabytes per month, roughly 1.2 zettabytes per year.
A 64-bit address space spans 2^64 bytes, which is 16 exbibytes, a binary quantity that is a different size from 16 exabytes.
1 exabyte = 1×10¹⁸ bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Byte; Wikipedia: Metric prefix; Wikipedia: Zettabyte Era
Kilobyte (kB)
1,000 bytes in the SI (decimal) definition. Older software and Windows sometimes use KB to mean 1,024 bytes; see kibibyte.
Few units have had two meanings for so long. By the mid-1960s most computers used binary addressing, so memory sizes came in powers of two and engineers borrowed kilo to mean 1,024. IBM documentation for the System/360 in 1964 used an uppercase K for 1,024. Hard disk makers took a different path from the start. The IEC later settled the question: kilobyte, symbol kB, means 1,000 bytes, and 1,024 bytes is a kibibyte.
Floppy disks show the muddle. The Shugart SA-400 of 1976 held 109,375 bytes unformatted and was advertised as 110 Kbyte, the decimal way, while a 1978 Tandon double-density disk held 368,640 bytes, or 360 times 1,024, and was sold as 360 KB. Windows still divides by 1,024, so a 65,536-byte file appears as 64 KB there, while Mac OS X Snow Leopard and later would call it 66 kB. A kilobyte is also tiny: Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado is 12,843 bytes.
1 kilobyte = 1,000 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Kilobyte; Wikipedia: Binary prefix; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples
Related conversions
- Kilobytes to exabytes (reverse)
- Exabytes to bytes
- Exabytes to megabytes
- Exabytes to gigabytes
- Exabytes to terabytes
- Bytes to kilobytes
- Megabytes to kilobytes
- Gigabytes to kilobytes
- Terabytes to kilobytes
- Bits to kilobytes
- Petabytes to kilobytes
- Kibibytes to kilobytes
- Mebibytes to kilobytes
- Gibibytes to kilobytes
- Tebibytes to kilobytes
- Kilobits to kilobytes
- Megabits to kilobytes
See all digital storage units.