Kilobytes to Gibibytes (kB to GiB)
1 kilobyte equals 9.313225746×10⁻⁷ gibibytes (rounded).
How to convert kilobytes to gibibytes
To convert kilobytes to gibibytes, multiply the number of kilobytes by 9.313225746×10⁻⁷. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply gibibytes by 1,073,741.824.
gibibytes = kilobytes × 9.313225746×10⁻⁷
Example: 10 kilobytes = 0.000009313225746 gibibytes.
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
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
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
Related conversions
- Gibibytes to kilobytes (reverse)
- Kilobytes to bytes
- Kilobytes to megabytes
- Kilobytes to gigabytes
- Kilobytes to terabytes
- Kilobytes to bits
- Kilobytes to petabytes
- Kilobytes to kibibytes
- Kilobytes to mebibytes
- Kilobytes to tebibytes
- Kilobytes to kilobits
- Kilobytes to megabits
- Kilobytes to gigabits
- Bytes to gibibytes
- Megabytes to gibibytes
- Gigabytes to gibibytes
- Terabytes to gibibytes
- Bits to gibibytes
- Petabytes to gibibytes
- Kibibytes to gibibytes
- Mebibytes to gibibytes
- Tebibytes to gibibytes
- Kilobits to gibibytes
- Megabits to gibibytes
- Gigabits to gibibytes
See all digital storage units.