Gibibytes to Bits (GiB to bit)
1 gibibyte equals 8,589,934,592 bits exactly.
How to convert gibibytes to bits
To convert gibibytes to bits, multiply the number of gibibytes by 8,589,934,592. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply bits by 1.164153218×10⁻¹⁰ (rounded).
bits = gibibytes × 8,589,934,592
Example: 10 gibibytes = 85,899,345,920 bits.
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
Gibibyte (GiB)
Exactly 1,073,741,824 bytes (2³⁰), about 7.4% larger than a gigabyte. Windows displays this as 'GB', which is why a 500 GB drive appears as about 465 GB.
Gibibyte is the unit that explains why a new drive looks smaller than its box says. It is the IEC name, from December 1998, for 2 to the thirtieth bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes, chosen to denote powers of 1,024 unambiguously. A GiB is about 7.4 percent larger than a decimal gigabyte, so a drive advertised as 500 GB holds 500 billion bytes, which is about 465.7 GiB.
Windows reports that number with the label GB, so users see a shortfall. RAM is still counted in the binary sense, while hard drives, SSDs, flash media and optical discs are usually labeled in decimal units. Courts have held that the legal definition of GB is the decimal one. The symbol GiB is formed by adding an i to GB, and apart from KDE and Qt-based applications it is rarely used in practice.
1 gibibyte = 1,073,741,824 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Gibibyte; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples
Bit (bit)
The smallest unit of digital information: a single 0 or 1. Eight bits make a byte.
Bit is short for binary digit, and the word was coined by John W. Tukey. He shortened the phrase in a Bell Labs memo dated 9 January 1947. Claude Shannon first used it in print in his 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication and credited Tukey with the word. The idea predates the name: Ralph Hartley proposed a logarithmic measure of information in 1928, and punched cards, invented by Basile Bouchon and Jean-Baptiste Falcon in 1732 and developed by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1804, already stored one bit per hole position.
A bit holds one of two values, written 0 or 1, and everything digital is built from them. Eight bits make a byte, so a bit is one eighth of a byte. Symbols for the unit are not settled: the IEC standard uses bit, while IEEE 1541-2002 recommends a lowercase b, with uppercase B reserved for the byte. The difference matters because internet speeds and file sizes are quoted in different units.
1 bit = 0.125 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Bit; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples
Related conversions
- Bits to gibibytes (reverse)
- Gibibytes to bytes
- Gibibytes to kilobytes
- Gibibytes to megabytes
- Gibibytes to gigabytes
- Gibibytes to terabytes
- Gibibytes to petabytes
- Gibibytes to kibibytes
- Gibibytes to mebibytes
- Gibibytes to tebibytes
- Gibibytes to kilobits
- Gibibytes to megabits
- Gibibytes to gigabits
- Bytes to bits
- Kilobytes to bits
- Megabytes to bits
- Gigabytes to bits
- Terabytes to bits
- Petabytes to bits
- Kibibytes to bits
- Mebibytes to bits
- Tebibytes to bits
- Kilobits to bits
- Megabits to bits
- Gigabits to bits
See all digital storage units.