How much does a GB hold?

Answer 1

While Giga is billion and defined in base ten as 109 computers do not understand this. They only understand base two or binary. The term gibibyte is the name of what the computer actually understands and would be 233 bits as the actual number. To explain, kilobyte would be 103 or 1000 bytes, but the computer understands binary so a kibibyte is 210 bytes or 1024 bytes. Megabyte is 106 or 1,000,000 bytes, but again the computer understands mebibytes which is 220 or 1,048,576 bytes, or 210 x 210 or 1024 x 1024. Continuing onward a gigabyte would be 109 bytes or 1,000,000,000 bytes, which the computer again does not understand. It understands a gibibyte which is 230 bytes, or 210 x 210 x 210 , or 1024 x 1024 x 1024, or 1,073,741,824 bytes. To get bits of data, you multiply by 8 bits/byte or 23. This is why you can buy a hard drive that advertises as a certain number of gigabytes, but when you attach it to a computer; you are told that it is a bit smaller. The computer understands gibibytes which is a larger number divided into the total number of bytes available and gives a smaller number as its total.