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 byte is a standard unit of digital information made up of 8 bits. It's the basic building block for representing data in computers, where a single byte can typically store one character — such as a letter, number, or symbol.
Bytes are the foundation for measuring file size and storage capacity. Whether you're looking at the size of a text file or the storage available on a USB drive, the number is usually expressed in bytes or its larger multiples: kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), and terabytes (TB).
In memory and storage systems, bytes play a critical role in data organization. Operating systems, applications, and databases are designed to read and write data in byte-sized chunks. As a result, understanding how bytes work is key to grasping how digital systems store, transfer, and manage information.
SI (Base 10):
Formula: Byte = Gigabyte ÷ "Number of Gigabytes in 1 Byte"
Calculation: 100 × 1000000000 = 100000000000 Byte
Binary (Base 2):
Formula: Byte = Gigabyte ÷ "Number of Gigabytes in 1 Byte"
Calculation: 100 × 1073741824 = 107374182400 Byte
| Gigabyte | Byte (Binary) | Byte (SI) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,073,741,824 | 1,000,000,000 |
| 2 | 2,147,483,648 | 2,000,000,000 |
| 3 | 3,221,225,472 | 3,000,000,000 |
| 4 | 4,294,967,296 | 4,000,000,000 |
| 5 | 5,368,709,120 | 5,000,000,000 |
| 6 | 6,442,450,944 | 6,000,000,000 |
| 7 | 7,516,192,768 | 7,000,000,000 |
| 8 | 8,589,934,592 | 8,000,000,000 |
| 9 | 9,663,676,416 | 9,000,000,000 |
| 10 | 10,737,418,240 | 10,000,000,000 |
| 11 | 11,811,160,064 | 11,000,000,000 |
| 12 | 12,884,901,888 | 12,000,000,000 |
| 13 | 13,958,643,712 | 13,000,000,000 |
| 14 | 15,032,385,536 | 14,000,000,000 |
| 15 | 16,106,127,360 | 15,000,000,000 |