1GB = 1000MB Or 1024MB What is Right ? , There is Some Twist

In my recent poll on FB majority of you choose 1GB= 1024MB, which is wrong.

Many of you even changed your opinions after reading comments

it might be shocking to know that the thing you have studied your whole life is wrong.

1GB is in fact just 1000MB.

Well originally (before 1998) 1GB was 1024mb when data storages were measured in base 2 format 2^x

But in 1998 IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) decided that this method of conversion is very tricky for non techy person and they need to simplify it for common people.

Thus they created a new measurement standard KiB (Kibibyte), Mib(Mebibyte) and so on. now these are supposed to be the new data storage standard which uses the older base 2 format (2^x)

and they redefined the original KB, MB, GB…. to simple base 10 format (10^x)

this made it simple for non techy person to differentiate and convert different data sizes while giving techy savvy people their own format to do things traditional way.

TL,DR

1GB= 1000MB

1Gib= 1024MiB

but that being said many operating system continued to use the traditional base 2 format to handle data conversion like windows to maintain legacy compatibility.

Thats is also one of the reason why 1TB hdd doesn’t show up as 1tb in windows because windows is using base 2 system to calculate the size right from the kilobyte

1024*1024*1024 =1,07,37,41,824 bytes

but hdd manufacturers are measuring it as 1000*1000*1000 =1,00,00,00,000

this 73741824 kilobytes or roughly 70 gb is a significant amount of missing storage space we see in windows.

Fun fact in some linux distros 1tb drive will show up as 1tb drive

Let me know if you want to do this kind of polls in future