Data & Storage

File Size Converter

Convert between bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB and PB instantly — choose decimal (1000-based) or binary (1024-based) units.

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Disclaimer. Decimal and binary unit systems give different byte counts for the same labeled size (e.g. 1 GB decimal vs 1 GiB binary). Choose the mode that matches how your source figure was measured for an accurate conversion. Read full disclaimer →

Decimal vs Binary File Size Units

There are two competing conventions for file size units. Decimal (SI) units, used by hard drive and SSD manufacturers, scale by 1000: 1 KB = 1,000 bytes, 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes, and so on. Binary units, used internally by most operating systems, scale by 1024: 1 KiB = 1,024 bytes, 1 MiB = 1,048,576 bytes. This converter lets you toggle between both.

UnitDecimal (base 1000)Binary (base 1024)
Kilobyte1,000 bytes1,024 bytes
Megabyte1,000,000 bytes1,048,576 bytes
Gigabyte1,000,000,000 bytes1,073,741,824 bytes
Terabyte1,000,000,000,000 bytes1,099,511,627,776 bytes

Worked Example

A "1 TB" hard drive advertised in decimal units contains exactly 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. When Windows reports this same drive's capacity using binary units, it divides by 1,073,741,824 (1024³), showing roughly 931 GiB — which is why your "1TB" drive never shows a full 1000GB of usable space in File Explorer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Decimal units (used by storage manufacturers) use 1000 as the base — 1 KB = 1000 bytes. Binary units (used by operating systems like Windows) use 1024 as the base — 1 KiB = 1024 bytes. This is exactly why a "1TB" hard drive shows as roughly 931GB in Windows — the drive is labeled in decimal TB but the OS reports in binary units.
Manufacturers advertise storage in decimal units (1TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes) but your operating system displays it in binary units (1TB shown as ~931 GiB). The actual physical storage is the same — it's purely a difference in how the size is labeled and calculated.
In decimal units, 1 GB = 1,000 MB. In binary units, 1 GiB = 1,024 MiB. Most consumer software and file managers use 1,024 in practice even when labeling the unit as "GB" rather than the technically correct "GiB", which is why this converter offers both modes.
This converter goes up to petabytes (PB), which is 1,000 terabytes in decimal or 1,024 tebibytes in binary — roughly a million gigabytes. Beyond that, exabytes (EB) and zettabytes (ZB) are used mainly to describe total global data storage, not individual files.
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