Terabytes to Kilobits (TB to kb)
1 terabyte equals 8,000,000,000 kilobits exactly.
How to convert terabytes to kilobits
To convert terabytes to kilobits, multiply the number of terabytes by 8,000,000,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilobits by 1.25×10⁻¹⁰.
kilobits = terabytes × 8,000,000,000
Example: 10 terabytes = 80,000,000,000 kilobits.
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
Terabyte (TB)
1,000 gigabytes (10¹² bytes), the capacity of a typical modern hard drive.
Tera comes from the SI prefix for 10 to the twelfth, so a terabyte is one million million bytes. Computer memory is binary, so the prefixes were once used for powers of two, which caused confusion. IUPAC proposed binary prefixes such as kibi, mebi and gibi in 1995, and the IEC adopted them in December 1998 and published the standard in January 1999. The tebibyte is the binary counterpart, about 9 percent larger than the terabyte.
Hitachi introduced the first one-terabyte consumer hard drive in 2007. For scale, one terabyte is about 20 standard Blu-ray discs or 213 DVDs. The mismatch shows at this size: a drive sold as 1 TB may be reported as about 931 GB, because Windows uses the historic binary convention. macOS and iOS did the same until Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and iOS 10, then switched to powers of 10.
1 terabyte = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Terabyte; Wikipedia: Binary prefix; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples
Kilobit (kb)
1,000 bits (125 bytes). Used for data rates and sizes in telecommunications.
Kilobit means a thousand bits, and in telecommunications data rates are usually measured in decimal SI multiples. The article on the bit gives a handy example: a channel capacity of 8 kbit/s is 1 kB/s, so dividing kilobits by eight gives kilobytes. The binary counterpart, the kibibit, is 1,024 bits, but it is seldom used.
Symbols cause trouble. The IEC standard says to write kbit, while IEEE 1541-2002 recommends a lowercase b, giving kb, and the lowercase b may be confused with capital B for byte. On this site a kilobit is 125 bytes. The history behind it is that of the bit itself: Ralph Hartley proposed a logarithmic information measure in 1928, and Claude Shannon first used the word in 1948, crediting John W. Tukey.
1 kilobit = 125 bytes (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Bit; Wikipedia: Kilobit
Related conversions
- Kilobits to terabytes (reverse)
- Terabytes to bytes
- Terabytes to kilobytes
- Terabytes to megabytes
- Terabytes to gigabytes
- Terabytes to bits
- Terabytes to petabytes
- Terabytes to kibibytes
- Terabytes to mebibytes
- Terabytes to gibibytes
- Terabytes to tebibytes
- Terabytes to megabits
- Terabytes to gigabits
- Bytes to kilobits
- Kilobytes to kilobits
- Megabytes to kilobits
- Gigabytes to kilobits
- Bits to kilobits
- Petabytes to kilobits
- Kibibytes to kilobits
- Mebibytes to kilobits
- Gibibytes to kilobits
- Tebibytes to kilobits
- Megabits to kilobits
- Gigabits to kilobits
See all digital storage units.