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BINARY MAGNTIUDES, BINARY PREFIXES AND DECIMAL PREFIXES

Binary magnitudes and the differences between binary prefixes and decimal prefixes.
When you have completed this unit you should be able to explain and use the differences
between

• kibi and kilo

• mebi and mega
• gibi and giga
• tebi and tera
From your IGCSE you will recall that computers use the binary system of numbers. In
Computer Science we measure data in bits, bytes and data transfer speeds in bits per
second. The number of bits or bytes stored by a computer and data transfer speeds can be
very large, hence we use multiples of these units.
In the decimal/denary number system multiples of 10 are used. Those we need to know are
prefixed kilo, mega, giga and tera.

Prefix Multiple Symbol

kilo 103 = 1000 k
mega 106 = 1 000 000 M
giga 109= 1 000 000 000 G
tera 1012= 1 000 000 000 000 T

The decimal prefixes use multiples of 10 since the decimal number system uses base 10. The
binary system of numbers uses base 2 i.e. multiples of 2.

210 = 1024 which is approximately equal to 1 000 or a kilo.

220 = 10242 = 1 048 576 which is approximately equal to 1 000 000 or a Mega
230 = 10243 = 1 073 741 824 which is approximately equal to 1 000 000 000 or a giga
240 = 10244 =
Historically, the computer industry used kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte and terabyte and the
corresponding symbols KB, MB, GB and TB to measure computer memory. The kilobyte was
1024 bytes, megabyte was 1 048 576 bytes etc. At the same time in other contexts e.g. data
transfer speeds the kilo, mega, giga and tera were used in their usual decimal meanings i.e.
1 000, 1 000 000, 1 000 000 000 etc respectively. The industry was using two different
systems with slightly different values.
The use of the same unit prefixes with two different meanings has caused confusion.
Starting around 1998, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and several other
standards and trade organizations addressed the ambiguity by publishing standards and
recommendations for a set of binary prefixes that refer exclusively to powers of 1024.
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Accordingly, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) requires that SI
prefixes only be used in the decimal sense: kilobyte and megabyte denote one thousand
bytes and one million bytes respectively (consistent with SI), while new terms such as
kibibyte, mebibyte and gibibyte, tebibyte having the symbols KiB, MiB, and GiB, TiB denote
1024 bytes, 1 048 576 bytes, and 1 073 741 824 bytes, respectively.
Here are the common prefixes based on powers of 2

Prefix Multiple Symbol

kibi 210 = 1024 ki
mebi 220 = 10242 = 1 048 576 Mi
gibi 230 = 10243 = 1 073 741 824 Gi
tebi 240 = 10244 = 1 099 511 627 776 Ti

Summary of decimal and binary prefixes

END OF NOTES