Gibibytes to gigabytes – and gigabytes to gibibytes

Formula

Multiply the value in gibibytes by 1.0737418 to get gigabytes.
GB = GiB × 1.0737418

Multiply the value in gigabytes by 0.93132257 to get gibibytes.
GiB = GB × 0.93132257

How to convert gibibytes to gigabytes

Type a value in the field above and the result is calculated instantly. Use the arrow button to swap direction, or pick other units from the lists.

Doing it in your head

A rough conversion for when the calculator is not to hand. The error comes last, and it holds in both directions at that order of magnitude.

• Gibibytes to gigabytes: × 5 ÷ 4 − 15%. That gives 1.063 instead of 1.07374, an error of 1.1%.
• Gigabytes to gibibytes: × 3 ÷ 4 + 25%. That gives 0.9375 instead of 0.931323, an error of 0.66%.

About the units

Gibibytes. A gibibyte is 2³⁰ bytes, 1,073,741,824 bytes. The prefix gibi was adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission in January 1999 and now sits in the standard IEC 80000-13. The unit belongs where sizes really are powers of two: working memory, virtual machines and Unix tools. A drive sold as 1 TB holds 931.32 gibibytes, and that is the figure Windows shows. The gap against the decimal prefixes widens as you climb: 2.4% for kibi, 4.9% for mebi, 7.4% for gibi and 10.0% for tebi.

Gigabytes. A gigabyte is a thousand million bytes under the SI prefix giga. The binary counterpart, the gibibyte, is 1,073,741,824 bytes, 7.4% more. The unit measures storage, memory and mobile data, and it is not regulated in the EU. Here is the classic trap of the category: drive makers count decimally, so a 1 TB drive is 10¹² bytes, while Windows shows the same drive in binary but writes “GB” – and the figure comes out as 931. Gigabyte against gigabit is a factor of eight.