Digital & Data

Binary Prefix

Definition

Binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, GiB) denote powers of 1024, in contrast to metric SI prefixes (KB, MB, GB) which denote powers of 1000.

Explanation

1 KiB (kibibyte) = 1,024 bytes; 1 KB (kilobyte) = 1,000 bytes. The gap widens at higher scales: 1 GiB = 1,073,741,824 bytes vs. 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes—a 7.4% difference. This explains why a '1 TB' hard drive shows as ~931 GiB in an OS. The IEC standardized the binary prefixes in 1998 specifically to resolve this ambiguity.

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RELATED TERMS

Bit and Byte

A bit is the smallest unit of digital information, representing a 0 or 1; a byte is a group of 8 bits, capable of representing 256 distinct values.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the maximum data transfer capacity of a communication channel, typically measured in bits per second (bps, Mbps, Gbps).

Latency

Latency is the time delay between a data packet being sent from a source and received at its destination, typically measured in milliseconds (ms).

Throughput

Throughput is the actual rate at which data is successfully transferred over a network or system in a given time period, measured in bits or bytes per second.

Clock Speed

Clock speed is the frequency at which a processor executes cycles, measured in hertz (Hz), with modern CPUs operating in the gigahertz (GHz) range.