Megabytes to Mebibytes (MB to MiB)
1 megabyte equals 0.9536743164 mebibytes (rounded).
How to convert megabytes to mebibytes
To convert megabytes to mebibytes, multiply the number of megabytes by 0.9536743164. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply mebibytes by 1.048576.
mebibytes = megabytes × 0.9536743164
Example: 10 megabytes = 9.536743164 mebibytes.
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)
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
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
Related conversions
- Mebibytes to megabytes (reverse)
- Megabytes to bytes
- Megabytes to kilobytes
- Megabytes to gigabytes
- Megabytes to terabytes
- Megabytes to bits
- Megabytes to petabytes
- Megabytes to kibibytes
- Megabytes to gibibytes
- Megabytes to tebibytes
- Megabytes to kilobits
- Megabytes to megabits
- Megabytes to gigabits
- Bytes to mebibytes
- Kilobytes to mebibytes
- Gigabytes to mebibytes
- Terabytes to mebibytes
- Bits to mebibytes
- Petabytes to mebibytes
- Kibibytes to mebibytes
- Gibibytes to mebibytes
- Tebibytes to mebibytes
- Kilobits to mebibytes
- Megabits to mebibytes
- Gigabits to mebibytes
See all digital storage units.