Binary vs decimal: why your 1 TB drive shows as 931 GB
Storage manufacturers measure capacity in decimal units (1 KB = 1000 bytes), but most operating systems display files in binary units (1 KiB = 1024 bytes). The two diverge as sizes grow:
- 1 GB (decimal) = 1,000,000,000 bytes
- 1 GiB (binary) = 1,073,741,824 bytes — about 7.4% larger
That is why a "1 TB" hard drive is shown as 931 GiB in Windows, and why a 4 GB file won't fit on a USB stick labelled "4 GB" formatted FAT32.
How to estimate transfer time
Internet speeds are measured in megabits per second (Mbps), but file sizes are in megabytes (MB). 1 byte = 8 bits, so divide your Mbps by 8 to get MB/s. Want a one-click estimate? Try our transfer speed calculator.