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Digital Storage Converter — GB vs GiB, the Real Difference Explained
Convert between decimal storage units (GB, based on powers of 1000, used by drive manufacturers) and binary units (GiB, based on powers of 1024, used by most operating systems) — the exact reason a "1TB" drive shows roughly 931 GiB in Windows or macOS, which confuses people who assume it is a manufacturing shortfall rather than a units mismatch.
How to use Digital Storage Pro
- Enter a storage value.
- Choose the source and target units (decimal or binary).
- Read the converted value.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does my 1TB drive show less than 1000 GB in my computer?
- Manufacturers use decimal TB (10¹² bytes), but most operating systems display binary TiB (2⁴⁰ bytes) while mislabeling it "TB" — 1 decimal TB equals about 0.909 TiB, which is exactly the "missing" space people notice.
- What is the actual difference between GB and GiB?
- 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes (decimal, base 1000); 1 GiB = 1,073,741,824 bytes (binary, base 1024) — GiB is always the larger unit per-byte-count despite the smaller-looking number in casual use.
- Which unit should I use when specifying storage requirements?
- GiB (or explicitly stating "binary") avoids ambiguity for technical specifications; GB is more common in consumer marketing contexts.
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