Megabytes to Mebibits (MB to Mibit)

1 megabyte equals 7.629394531 mebibits (rounded).

How to convert megabytes to mebibits

To convert megabytes to mebibits, multiply the number of megabytes by 7.629394531. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply mebibits by 0.131072.

mebibits = megabytes × 7.629394531

Example: 10 megabytes = 76.29394531 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

Megabyte (MB)

ComputingCurrent unit

1,000,000 bytes (decimal). A typical MP3 song is 3–5 MB; a smartphone photo is 2–5 MB.

Megabyte started out as informal jargon. Base-1,024 usage grew because 1,024 is close to 1,000 and convenient for binary multiples. In 1999 the IEC standardized binary prefixes, assigning megabyte to 10 to the sixth bytes and mebibyte to 2 to the twentieth. By the end of 2009 the IEEE, the EU, ISO and NIST had adopted that standard, though the word still carries different meanings in practice.

The famous 1.44 MB floppy disk is a mixed case: it counts 1,024,000 bytes per megabyte, and it actually holds 1,474,560 bytes. Today most storage media and networking use the decimal definition, while Windows uses the binary one for memory such as RAM. For scale, a PlayStation 2 memory card held 8 MB, the plain text of Moby Dick runs to 1.192 MB, and one megabyte holds about one minute of 128 kbit/s MP3 audio.

1 megabyte = 1,000,000 bytes (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Megabyte; 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.