Kibibyte

Encyclopedia : K : KI : KIB : Kibibyte

Quantities of bytes
Popular use and (SI standard meaning)			Binary prefix standards from IEC 60027-2
Name	Symbol	Quantity	Name	Symbol	Quantity
kilobyte	kB	2¹⁰ (10³)	kibibyte	KiB	2¹⁰
megabyte	MB	2²⁰ (10⁶)	mebibyte	MiB	2²⁰
gigabyte	GB	2³⁰ (10⁹)	gibibyte	GiB	2³⁰
terabyte	TB	2⁴⁰ (10¹²)	tebibyte	TiB	2⁴⁰
petabyte	PB	2⁵⁰ (10¹⁵)	pebibyte	PiB	2⁵⁰
exabyte	EB	2⁶⁰ (10¹⁸)	exbibyte	EiB	2⁶⁰
zettabyte	ZB	2⁷⁰ (10²¹)	zebibyte	ZiB	2⁷⁰
yottabyte	YB	2⁸⁰ (10²⁴)	yobibyte	YiB	2⁸⁰

A kibibyte (a contraction of kilo binary byte) is a unit of information or computer storage, abbreviated KiB (never "kiB").

1 kibibyte = 2¹⁰ bytes = 1,024 bytes

The kibibyte is closely related to the kilobyte, which can be used either as a synonym for kibibyte or to refer to 10³ bytes = 1,000 bytes (see binary prefix).

Usage of these terms is intended to help prevent the confusion common among storage media, due to the ambiguous meaning of "kilobyte". Thus the term kibibyte has evolved to refer exclusively to 1,024 bytes.

This problem of confusion of the term kilobyte simultaneously being used to refer to both 1,000 and 1,024 became more prevalent when computer hard drives grew to the gigabyte and larger size, because if one expects power of two values to refer to capacity, and manufacturers were using power of ten values, the difference could be substantial, e.g. 1 megabyte, if expressed as power of two, is 1024² or 1024*1024, or 1,048,576, while 1000*1000, of course, is 1,000,000. In the case of a "gigabyte", if one uses 1024³, the size of a drive would be expected to be 1,073,741,824 bytes per gigabyte versus 1000³, or a mere 1,000,000,000. On a 100 gigabyte drive, the difference is a whopping 7 gigabytes additional storage that is, or is not, present depending on whether 100 gigabytes refers to 100*1000³ or 100*1024³.

Kibibyte

See also