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A gigabyte or Gbyte (derived from the SI Prefix '' Giga -'') is a unit of Information or Computer Storage equal to 1000³ Byte s or 1024³ bytes (1000³ = one Billion ). It is commonly abbreviated '''GB''' (not to be confused with '''Gb''', which is used for Gigabit s). The usage of the word "gigabyte" is ambiguous, depending on the context. When referring to RAM sizes and file sizes, it Traditionally has a binary definition, of 1024³ bytes. For every other use, it means exactly 1000³ bytes. In order to address this confusion, currently all relevant standards bodies promote the use of the term " Gibibyte " for the binary definition. DEFINITION There are two slightly different definitions of gigabyte in general use:
GIGABYTES VS GIGABITS In conventional modern usage, a byte is 8 bits. One gigabyte is equivalent to eight gigabits. CONSUMER CONFUSION As of 2007 , most consumer Hard Drive s are defined by their gigabyte-range capacities. The true capacity is usually some number above or below the class designation. Although most manufacturers of hard disks and Flash disks define 1 gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, the computer operating systems used by most users usually calculate a gigabyte by dividing the bytes (whether it is disk capacity, file size, or system RAM) by 1,073,741,824. This distinction is a cause of confusion, especially for people from a non-technical background, as a hard disk with a manufacturer rated capacity of 40 gigabytes may have its capacity reported by the operating system as only 37.2 GB, depending on the type of report. The difference between SI and binary prefixes increases exponentially — in other words, an SI kilobyte is nearly 98% as much as a kibibyte, but a megabyte is under 96% as much as a mebibyte, and a gigabyte is just over 93% as much as a gibibyte. This means that a 500 GB hard disk drive would appear as "465 GB". As storage sizes get larger and higher units are used, this difference will become more pronounced. Note that computer memory is addressed in Base 2 , due to its design, so memory size is always a Power Of Two (or some closely related quantity, for instance 384 MiB = 3×227 bytes). It is thus convenient to work in binary units for RAM . Other computer measurements, like Storage hardware size, Data Transfer rates, Clock Speed s, Operations Per Second , etc., do not have an inherent Base , and are usually presented in decimal units. As an example, take a hard drive that can store exactly 250 or 250 billion bytes after formatting. Generally, Operating System s calculate disk and file sizes using ''binary'' numbers, so this 250 GB drive would be reported as "232.83 GB". The result is that there is a significant discrepancy between what the consumer believes they have purchased and what their operating system says they have. Some consumers feel short-changed when they discover the difference, and claim that manufacturers of drives and data transfer devices are using the decimal measurements in an intentionally misleading way to inflate their numbers. Several legal disputes have been waged over the confusion. ''See Binary Prefix — Legal Disputes .'' The basis of the problem is of course that the official definition of the SI units is not well known, and some legal settlements include directions for manufacturers to use clearer info, e.g. by stating a hard disk's size in both GB and GiB. GIGABYTES IN USE
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