A gigabyte (GB) is a unit of digital storage equal to 1,024 megabytes (MB) or approximately 1 billion bytes. It is a standard measurement used across operating systems, storage devices, and cloud platforms to represent capacity and file size.
Gigabytes are commonly used to describe the size of applications, operating systems, high-resolution media, and storage space. For example, a 4K movie can be 10–20 GB, and smartphones today often come with 64 GB to 512 GB of internal storage.
In both hardware and networking, gigabytes serve as a reference point for system requirements, file transfers, and usage limits. Whether you're managing a cloud backup, downloading large files, or installing software, understanding gigabytes helps gauge how much space or bandwidth is needed.
A bit is the smallest unit of digital information, short for "binary digit." It represents a value of either 0 or 1, forming the foundation of all data in computing systems. Bits are the building blocks of binary code, which powers everything from simple text files to complex artificial intelligence models.
In everyday use, file sizes and storage are rarely measured in bits. Instead, bits are grouped into larger units such as bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, and beyond. Even so, the bit remains a fundamental concept. It's the starting point of all digital information, forming the base upon which every file, app, or system is built. Understanding bits helps make sense of how digital devices store and process data at their core.
SI (Base 10):
Formula: Bit = Gigabyte ÷ "Number of Gigabytes in 1 Bit"
Calculation: 100 × 8000000000 = 800000000000 Bit
Binary (Base 2):
Formula: Bit = Gigabyte ÷ "Number of Gigabytes in 1 Bit"
Calculation: 100 × 8589934592 = 858993459200 Bit
| Gigabyte | Bit (Binary) | Bit (SI) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8,589,934,592 | 8,000,000,000 |
| 2 | 17,179,869,184 | 16,000,000,000 |
| 3 | 25,769,803,776 | 24,000,000,000 |
| 4 | 34,359,738,368 | 32,000,000,000 |
| 5 | 42,949,672,960 | 40,000,000,000 |
| 6 | 51,539,607,552 | 48,000,000,000 |
| 7 | 60,129,542,144 | 56,000,000,000 |
| 8 | 68,719,476,736 | 64,000,000,000 |
| 9 | 77,309,411,328 | 72,000,000,000 |
| 10 | 85,899,345,920 | 80,000,000,000 |
| 11 | 94,489,280,512 | 88,000,000,000 |
| 12 | 103,079,215,104 | 96,000,000,000 |
| 13 | 111,669,149,696 | 104,000,000,000 |
| 14 | 120,259,084,288 | 112,000,000,000 |
| 15 | 128,849,018,880 | 120,000,000,000 |