History MediaNotes / BinaryPrefix

Operating systems, given the UsefulNotes/BinaryBitsAndBytes nature of computers, measure this in powers of 2^10. So a kilobyte is 2^10, a megabyte is 2^20, a gigabyte 2^30, and so on. Turns out there are more bytes in a given order of magnitude than the SI method.

You bring home a brand new 1 terabyte hard drive to store your massive collection of whatever it is (Games, pictures, music, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick porn]]). After getting it up and running, formatting it, etc. you find out that your OS reports only 909 gigabytes. Wait, did the hard drive manufacturers shortchange you out of some 90 gigabytes of capacity? Did formatting really eat up all that space? Nope, it turns out this is a problem with what hard drive manufacturers say is a kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc. and what operating systems say, creating UnitConfusion. Both are, for all intents and purposes, correct, just measured on different scales.

Operating systems, given the BinaryBitsAndBytes nature of computers, measure this in powers of 2^10. So a kilobyte is 2^10, a megabyte is 2^20, a gigabyte 2^30, and so on. Turns out there are more bytes in a given order of magnitude than the SI method.

[[quoteright:577: [[{{Webcomic/Xkcd}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/351ff28599247e49b31efdeadf9e9473.png]]]]

You bring home a brand new 1 terabyte hard drive to store your massive collection of whatever it is (Games, pictures, music, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick porn]]). After getting it up and running, formatting it, etc. you find out that your OS reports only 909 gigabytes. Wait, did the hard drive manufacturers shortchange you out of some 90 gigabytes of capacity? Did formatting really eat up all that space? Nope, it turns out this is a problem with what hard drive manufacturers say is a kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc. and what operating systems say, creating UnitConfusion. Both are, for all intents and purposes, correct, just measured on different scales.

Hard drive manufacturers (and in fact, most memory manufacturers... except those that make RAM) say a kilobyte is 1,000 bytes, a megabyte 1,000,000 bytes, a gigabyte 1,000,000,000 bytes and so on. This is following the normal SI standard of naming quantities.

It wasn't until 1998that the convention of how operating system of measures memory became standardized by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), being called binary prefixes. It's the same as the SI prefix, but just replace the last two letters with "bi". Kilobyte becomes kibibyte, megabyte becomes mebibyte, [[OverlyLongGag and so on]]. But to make things worse, either way of naming is ''valid''. So while a gibibyte is without a doubt 2^30 bytes, a gigabyte could still be 1,000,000,000 bytes or 2^30 bytes.

Most operating systems still use binary prefixes. Mac OS X started using the SI method with Snow Leopard. Ubuntu Linux also started using the SI method.

Hard drive manufacturers (and in fact, most memory manufacturers... except those that make RAM) say a kilobyte is 1,000 bytes, a megabyte 1,000,00 bytes, a gigabyte 1,000,000,000 bytes and so on. This is following the normal SI standard of naming quantities.

It wasn't until recently that the convention of how operating system of measures memory became standardized, being called binary prefixes. It's the same as the SI prefix, but just replace the last two letters with "bi". Kilobyte becomes kibibyte, megabyte becomes mebibyte, [[OverlyLongGag and so on]]. But to make things worse, either way of naming is ''valid''. So while a gibibyte is without a doubt 2^30 bytes, a gigabyte could still be 1,000,000,000 bytes or 2^30 bytes.

You bring home a brand new 1 terabyte hard drive to store your massive collection of whatever it is (Games, pictures, music, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick porn]]). After getting it up and running, formatting it, etc. you find out that your OS reports only 909 gigabytes. Wait, did the hard drive manufacturers shortchange you out of some 90 gigabytes of capacity? Did formatting really eat up all that space? Nope, it turns out this is a problem with what hard drive manufacturer's say is a kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc. and what operating systems say, creating UnitConfusion. Both are, for all intents and purposes, correct, just measured on different scales.

Note that transfer speeds traditionally use SI prefixes. But they also note the speed in bits, not bytes.