Kibibits to Gigabytes (Kibit to GB)
1 kibibit equals 1.28×10⁻⁷ gigabytes exactly.
How to convert kibibits to gigabytes
To convert kibibits to gigabytes, multiply the number of kibibits by 1.28×10⁻⁷. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply gigabytes by 7,812,500.
gigabytes = kibibits × 1.28×10⁻⁷
Example: 10 kibibits = 0.00000128 gigabytes.
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
Kibibit (Kibit)
Exactly 1,024 bits.
Before 1999, a kilobit was often loosely taken to mean 1,024 bits as well as 1,000, and the IEC prefix kibi settled the matter. A kibibit (Kibit) is exactly 2^10 bits, which is 1,024 bits or 128 bytes. The IEC adopted the prefix in December 1998, and the BIPM's vocabulary of metrology notes that 1 kilobit should not be used to mean 1,024 bits.
The name starts with the first two letters of kilo and adds bi for binary, and the symbol writes the K as a capital to match the other binary prefixes. The difference from the decimal kilobit is 2.4 percent, the smallest of any pair.
The unit is a small one, equal to 128 bytes, and appears mainly where an exact binary bit count has to be stated without the ambiguity of kilobit.
1 kibibit = 128 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Binary prefix; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Bit
Gigabyte (GB)
1,000,000,000 bytes (decimal). Storage manufacturers and phone makers use this definition.
The gigabyte is where the decimal-versus-binary dispute turned into lawsuits. Drive makers advertise capacity in decimal units, so a 500 GB drive holds 500 billion bytes, but Windows reports sizes in binary units and shows about 465.7 of what it labels GB for the same drive. Early challenges against Western Digital and Seagate were settled, with Western Digital adding disclaimers that usable capacity may differ from the advertised figure.
A 2019 lawsuit was decided in the manufacturers' favor, with the court relying on the decimal definition. For scale, one gigabyte holds roughly an hour of standard-definition video at 2.2 Mbit/s. A single-layer DVD+R holds about 4.7 GB and a single-layer Blu-ray about 25 GB. RAM is still often sized in binary gigabytes, which the IEC would call gibibytes.
1 gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Gigabyte; Wikipedia: Binary prefix; Wikipedia: Gibibyte
Related conversions
- Gigabytes to kibibits (reverse)
- Kibibits to bytes
- Kibibits to kilobytes
- Kibibits to megabytes
- Kibibits to terabytes
- Bytes to gigabytes
- Kilobytes to gigabytes
- Megabytes to gigabytes
- Terabytes to gigabytes
- Bits to gigabytes
- Petabytes to gigabytes
- Kibibytes to gigabytes
- Mebibytes to gigabytes
- Gibibytes to gigabytes
- Tebibytes to gigabytes
- Kilobits to gigabytes
- Megabits to gigabytes
See all digital storage units.