Gibibits to Bytes (Gibit to B)

1 gibibit equals 134,217,728 bytes exactly.

How to convert gibibits to bytes

To convert gibibits to bytes, multiply the number of gibibits by 134,217,728. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply bytes by 7.450580597×10⁻⁹ (rounded).

bytes = gibibits × 134,217,728

Example: 10 gibibits = 1,342,177,280 bytes.

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

Gibibit (Gibit)

ComputingCurrent unit

Exactly 1,073,741,824 bits.

Equal to 2^30 bits, or 1,073,741,824 bits, the gibibit (Gibit) is the unit behind many memory chip densities. Dividing by eight gives 134,217,728 bytes, which is 128 mebibytes. The gibi prefix, from the first two letters of giga plus bi, was among the first three binary prefixes the IEC approved in December 1998.

Its decimal cousin, the gigabit, is 10^9 bits, so a gibibit is about 7.4 percent larger. That gap is why a quantity described in gigabits and the same quantity in binary units can differ noticeably when the two conventions are mixed. Telecom speeds are quoted in decimal gigabits per second, while the gibi names exist so that a binary count can be stated without ambiguity.

The symbol Gibit is a bit count; the byte equivalent, with capital B, is the gibibyte, GiB, which is eight times larger.

1 gibibit = 134,217,728 bytes (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Binary prefix; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Bit

Byte (B)

ComputingCurrent unit

Eight bits. The basic addressable unit of memory and storage.

Werner Buchholz coined the word byte in June 1956 while working on the IBM Stretch computer; the earliest supporting document is dated 11 June 1956. He respelled bite on purpose, in his words to avoid accidental mutation to bit. At that stage a byte was any group of one to six bits, and a move to eight bits was considered in August 1956 and built into the design soon after. Louis Dooley later claimed he had coined the term around 1956 or 1957 on the SAGE project at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where it meant groups of four bits, but Fred Brooks credited Buchholz.

IBM's System/360 adopted the eight-bit byte, and its success made that size the standard. The symbol is a capital B, and the unambiguous alternative is octet, a word used in protocol standards such as RFC 791. A byte can hold 256 distinct values, enough for a letter of the alphabet in a simple character set, which is why files and memory addresses are counted in bytes.

The byte is the reference unit for digital storage on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Byte; Wikipedia: Binary prefix

Related conversions

See all digital storage units.