Mebibytes to Gigabytes (MiB to GB)
1 mebibyte equals 0.001048576 gigabytes exactly.
How to convert mebibytes to gigabytes
To convert mebibytes to gigabytes, multiply the number of mebibytes by 0.001048576. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply gigabytes by 953.6743164 (rounded).
gigabytes = mebibytes × 0.001048576
Example: 10 mebibytes = 0.01048576 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
Mebibyte (MiB)
Exactly 1,048,576 bytes (2²⁰). The binary megabyte, about 4.9% larger than a decimal megabyte.
Mebi, from mega with the binary i added, belongs to the same 1998 IEC family as kibi and gibi, which the IEC published as Amendment 2 to IEC 60027-2 in January 1999. NIST gives the factor as 2 to the twentieth, or 1,048,576 bytes. It was meant to settle a real argument: once storage makers and telecom engineers used decimal values and programmers used binary ones, megabyte came to mean different amounts.
A mebibyte is about 4.9 percent larger than a megabyte, and the standard is now IEC 80000-13. The classic example is the 1.44 MB floppy, whose true capacity is 1,440 KiB, which is 1.47 MB or 1.41 MiB. Like other IEC symbols, MiB is rarely used outside tools such as KDE and Qt-based applications, while Windows and RAM labels use MB for the binary quantity.
1 mebibyte = 1,048,576 bytes (exactly).
Sources: NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Mebibyte
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 mebibytes (reverse)
- Mebibytes to bytes
- Mebibytes to kilobytes
- Mebibytes to megabytes
- Mebibytes to terabytes
- Mebibytes to bits
- Mebibytes to petabytes
- Mebibytes to kibibytes
- Mebibytes to gibibytes
- Mebibytes to tebibytes
- Mebibytes to kilobits
- Mebibytes to megabits
- Mebibytes to gigabits
- Bytes to gigabytes
- Kilobytes to gigabytes
- Megabytes to gigabytes
- Terabytes to gigabytes
- Bits to gigabytes
- Petabytes to gigabytes
- Kibibytes to gigabytes
- Gibibytes to gigabytes
- Tebibytes to gigabytes
- Kilobits to gigabytes
- Megabits to gigabytes
- Gigabits to gigabytes
See all digital storage units.