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Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes
(zeta.one)
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this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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I was taught 1024 in my tech school. So I won’t ever refer to it as 1000 instead 1024. Not that it seems even remotely relevant though.
kilobyte (KB) is 1000, kibibyte (KiB) is 1024
at least according the the IEC, and id tend to go with them… SI units say that kilo means 1000
That's a relatively recent change though. AFAIK KB=1024 and MB=1024^2 was more common. As the article mentions, it's still commonly used in some sectors:
https://www.jedec.org/standards-documents/dictionary/terms/mega-m-prefix-units-semiconductor-storage-capacity
If you ask someone in their twenties, they're going to say 1000. If you ask someone who's older, or someone who knows a lot about disk storage they're likely to say 1024. Hell, as the article mentions windows uses the 1024 definition, which is one of the rasons why drives always seem smaller than their advertised size. The box says 250 GB, but when you install it windows says it'll say it's less than that. It's not actually less than 250 GB. It's just that windows is using GiB/Gibibytes but calling them GB/Gigabytes.
TLDR: no wonder people are confused.
Only recent in some computers: which used a non-standard definition. The kilo prefix has meant 1000 since at least 1795-- which predates just about any kilobyte.