Gibibit to Kibibyte Converter

A kibibyte (KiB) is a unit of digital information storage equal to 210 bytes, which is exactly 1,024 bytes. It uses the binary prefix 'kibi-' established by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 1998. The kibibyte was created to provide an unambiguous measurement for byte multiples based on powers of 2, distinguishing it from the kilobyte (KB), which is based on the decimal prefix 'kilo-' (103 or 1,000 bytes).

The prefix 'kibi-' (representing 210) was defined by the IEC in 1998 alongside other binary prefixes (mebi-, gibi-, tebi-, etc.). Before this standard, the SI prefix 'kilo-' (k) was ambiguously used to represent both 1000 (as per its SI definition) and 1024 in computing contexts. This led to confusion, especially when comparing storage capacities advertised by manufacturers (often using decimal prefixes) and those reported by operating systems (often using binary interpretations). The introduction of the kibibyte (KiB) aimed to resolve this ambiguity by providing a specific term for 1,024 bytes.

Kibibytes are used in contexts where precision based on powers of 2 is necessary:

• Measuring Random Access Memory (RAM) capacity, which is typically manufactured in powers-of-2 sizes.
• Reporting file sizes and disk space usage by some operating systems (like Microsoft Windows) and file systems.
• Software development and technical documentation where exact binary multiples are crucial for calculations or specifications.
• Network file transfer protocols where block sizes might be defined in binary terms.
• Ensuring accuracy when comparing storage defined using binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, GiB) versus decimal prefixes (KB, MB, GB).