Unit Prefixes

This page describes the differences between binary and metric prefixes for a better understanding.

APPUiO Cloud uses binary prefixes throughout the whole system.

There are two well-known unit prefixes which can cause confusion:

Binary prefixes

A binary prefix is a unit prefix to indicate multiplication by a power of 2.

Table 1. Example
Unit of measure Bytes

Kibibyte (KiB)

1'024¹ = 1'024

Mebibyte (MiB)

1'024² = 1'048'576

Gibibyte (GiB)

1'024³ = 1'073'741'824

Tebibyte (TiB)

1'024⁴ = 1'099'511'627'776

Pebibyte (PiB)

1'024⁵ = 1'125'899'906'842'62

These prefixes are also known as IEC prefixes.

Metric prefixes

A metric prefix is a unit prefix that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a multiple or submultiple of the unit.

Table 2. Example
Unit of measure Bytes

Kilobyte (KB)

1'000¹ = 1'000

Megabyte (MB)

1'000² = 1'000'000

Gigabyte (GB)

1'000³ = 1'000'000'000

Terabyte (TB)

1'000⁴ = 1'000'000'000'000

Petabyte (PB)

1'000⁵ = 1'000'000'000'000'000

Conversion

GB to GiB

Multiply by (1000³ / 1024³), equivalent to 0.931323
Divide by this value to go from GiB to GB

TB to TiB

Multiply by (1000⁴ / 1024⁴), equivalent to 0.909495
Divide by this value to go from TiB to TB

GiB to TiB

Divide by 1024
Multiply by 1024 to go from TiB to GiB

GiB to TB

Convert into GB by dividing by 0.931323, then divide by 1000 to get into TB

Table 3. Example
Unit Is equal to

1 GB

0.93 GiB

1 TB

0.91 TiB

1 TB

931 GiB

1 TiB

1.1 TB
We measure and store everything in bytes and convert to binary prefixes for better human readability.