Data unit converter
A drive manufacturer counts 1 GB as a billion bytes, while the operating system shows 2^30. That is the gap between the capacity on the box and the one your computer reports. The converter shows both.
SI prefixes (KB, MB, GB) are powers of 1000, binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, GiB) are powers of 1024. Windows shows GiB but labels it GB, which is why a 1 TB drive appears to hold only 931 GB.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a 1 TB drive show 931 GB?
Because the manufacturer sold 10^12 bytes and the system divides by 1024^3. 10^12 / 1024^3 = 931.32.
When are KiB and MiB used?
In technical contexts where memory has to be exact: page sizes, buffers, RAM. The IEC standard defined them in 1998 precisely to remove the ambiguity.
How many bytes is one character?
In ASCII, one. In UTF-8, one to four: Latin letters take one byte, accented characters two, an emoji four.