Kilobyte

Multiple-byte units

Decimal
Value		Metric
1000	10³	kB	kilobyte
1000²	10⁶	MB	megabyte
1000³	10⁹	GB	gigabyte
1000⁴	10¹²	TB	terabyte
1000⁵	10¹⁵	PB	petabyte
1000⁶	10¹⁸	EB	exabyte
1000⁷	10²¹	ZB	zettabyte
1000⁸	10²⁴	YB	yottabyte
1000⁹	10²⁷	RB	ronnabyte
1000¹⁰	10³⁰	QB	quettabyte

Binary
Value		IEC		Memory
1024	2¹⁰	KiB	kibibyte	KB	kilobyte
1024²	2²⁰	MiB	mebibyte	MB	megabyte
1024³	2³⁰	GiB	gibibyte	GB	gigabyte
1024⁴	2⁴⁰	TiB	tebibyte	TB	terabyte
1024⁵	2⁵⁰	PiB	pebibyte	–
1024⁶	2⁶⁰	EiB	exbibyte	–
1024⁷	2⁷⁰	ZiB	zebibyte	–
1024⁸	2⁸⁰	YiB	yobibyte	–
1024⁹	2⁹⁰	–		–
1024¹⁰	2¹⁰⁰	–		–

Orders of magnitude of data

The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix kilo as a multiplication factor of 1000 (10³); therefore, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes.^[1] The internationally recommended unit symbol for the kilobyte is kB.^[1]

In some areas of information technology, particularly in reference to random-access memory capacity, kilobyte instead typically refers to 1024 (2¹⁰) bytes. This arises from the prevalence of sizes that are powers of two in modern digital memory architectures, coupled with the coincidence that 2¹⁰ differs from 10³ by less than 2.5%. A kibibyte is 1024 bytes.^[1]

^ ^a ^b ^c International Standard IEC 80000-13 Quantities and Units – Part 13: Information science and technology, International Electrotechnical Commission (2008).

[IEC80000-1] International Standard IEC 80000-13 Quantities and Units – Part 13: Information science and technology, International Electrotechnical Commission (2008).

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