Why is 1TB equal to 1024GB and not 1000GB?

Name: Reme – Origin: Spain

Visitor Question or Comment:

Why is 1TB equal to 1024GB and not 1000GB?

Response from ALEGSA.com.ar:

1 terabyte (TB) is 1024 gigabyte (GB), using the classic units used in computing.

You are right, the prefixes tera, giga, mega, kilo, etc. are misused. The prefix «tera» (of Greek origin) means «one billion». So actually 1 terabyte should be 1000 gigabytes (or 1,000,000,000,000 bytes).

The same goes for 1 GB, which in computing is 1024 MB (megabyte), when in reality «giga» means one billion, so it should be 1000 MB (or 1,000,000,000 bytes). This problem is the same for kilobyte and megabyte.

The truth is that these prefixes were chosen because they were quite close to the number they wanted to represent, but they are misused.

Some time ago there was a proposal to clear up this confusion and change the names of these units, but it has not been fully extended yet.

I suggest you read these Wikipedia articles if you want to know more about these proposals and also better understand why prefixes are misused:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_Prefixes

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefix_binary

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