Kilobytes to Mebibits (kB to Mibit)

1 kilobyte equals 0.007629394531 mebibits (rounded).

How to convert kilobytes to mebibits

To convert kilobytes to mebibits, multiply the number of kilobytes by 0.007629394531. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply mebibits by 131.072.

mebibits = kilobytes × 0.007629394531

Example: 10 kilobytes = 0.07629394531 mebibits.

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)

ComputingCurrent unit

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

Mebibit (Mibit)

ComputingCurrent unit

Exactly 1,048,576 bits.

Mebibit means 2^20 bits exactly, which is 1,048,576 bits, or 131,072 bytes (128 kibibytes). It comes from the IEC's 1998 binary prefix set, with mebi formed from the first two letters of mega plus bi. The symbol is Mibit.

Compared with the decimal megabit of 1,000,000 bits, a mebibit is about 4.9 percent larger. As an arithmetic example, 16 mebibits come to 16 x 1,048,576 = 16,777,216 bits, which is 2 mebibytes. Serial links and network speeds, by contrast, are conventionally counted in decimal megabits per second.

NIST's page on binary prefixes explains the intended pronunciation, with the first syllable said like the matching SI prefix and the second as bee.

1 mebibit = 131,072 bytes (exactly).

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

Related conversions

See all digital storage units.