What the Digital Storage Converter Does

This data storage converter changes a value from one digital unit into another so you don't have to do the arithmetic by hand. Enter a number in bytes, kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB), or in the binary units KiB, MiB and GiB, and it returns the equivalent in every other unit.

It is built for anyone who works with file sizes, storage capacity or bandwidth: students, developers checking how much data fits on a disk, IT admins planning backups, and shoppers comparing a 'gb to mb' figure on a phone or USB drive against what the operating system reports.

How It Works: Decimal vs Binary Units

Everything starts from a single base unit, the byte, and one byte equals 8 bits. Conversion is just multiplication or division by a power of the unit's step size. The key point is that storage uses two different step sizes:

Decimal (SI) units step by 1000. These are what drive makers and most marketing use. Binary (IEC) units step by 1024 and are what many operating systems use to report free space.

Decimal: 1 KB = 1,000 bytes, 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes, 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes
Binary: 1 KiB = 1,024 bytes, 1 MiB = 1,024^2 = 1,048,576 bytes, 1 GiB = 1,024^3 = 1,073,741,824 bytes
To convert: bytes = value x (unit size in bytes); then divide by the target unit's size in bytes
Bits to bytes: bytes = bits / 8

Worked Example: 2 GB to MB

Suppose you want to convert 2 GB to MB using decimal units. First find the value in bytes: 2 x 1,000,000,000 = 2,000,000,000 bytes. Then divide by the size of one MB: 2,000,000,000 / 1,000,000 = 2,000 MB.

Now compare that drive to what your computer shows. A '2 GB' drive holds 2,000,000,000 bytes, but software using binary units divides by 1,073,741,824, giving about 1.86 GiB. The bytes never changed; only the unit used to describe them did. That gap is exactly why a 'new' drive looks smaller than the box claimed.

Tips and Common Mistakes

Most confusion comes from mixing the two systems or from bits versus bytes. Keep these points in mind:

Watch the case: 'b' usually means bit, 'B' means byte. A 100 Mb/s connection delivers about 12.5 MB/s, not 100.
Don't assume GB means 1,024-based. GB is decimal (1000); GiB is binary (1024). Many tools label binary values 'GB' anyway, which fuels the mismatch.
The size difference grows with scale: it is about 2.4% at the KB level but roughly 10% by the TB level.
When precision matters (quotas, billing, backup planning), convert to raw bytes first, then to your target unit.

Factors That Affect the Result

Whether you choose decimal or binary units is the single biggest factor in the answer, so pick the system that matches your source. Use decimal (KB, MB, GB) for advertised drive capacity, network speeds and cloud storage pricing; use binary (KiB, MiB, GiB) when matching figures reported by Windows, Linux file managers or RAM sizing.

Also remember that usable capacity differs from raw capacity. Formatting, file system overhead and reserved space mean a drive's real free space is always somewhat below its labeled size, even after you account for the decimal-versus-binary distinction.