TB/TiB/GB/GiB Converter

Capacity:

Enter a number with a unit, such as 10 TB, 500 GB, or 4 TiB.

Headline unit:

Choose the target label to feature; all four equivalents still render below.

Example preset:

Pick Custom to keep manually entered capacity and brief settings.

Brief reference:

Use Custom when the brief needs a different GB/TB package size.

Custom drive label:

Enter a GB or TB marketed size, for example 500 GB or 20 TB.

Display precision:

Use 6 decimals for byte-audit notes; use 3 for quick comparison.

Brief wording:

Strict IEC writes TiB/GiB; legacy explains binary math behind GB/TB labels.

Unit	Equivalent	Basis	Best for	Copy
{{ row.unit }}	{{ row.equivalentDisplay }} {{ row.badgeText }}	{{ row.basisText }}	{{ row.bestFor }}

Context	Shows	Use when	Copy
{{ row.contextLabel }}	{{ row.displayValue }}	{{ row.useWhen }}

Advertised	Strict IEC	Windows-style	Visible drop	Copy
{{ row.advertisedDisplay }}	{{ row.strictDisplay }}	{{ row.windowsDisplay }}	{{ row.dropDisplay }}

Section	Item	Value	Copy
{{ row.section }}	{{ row.item }}	{{ row.value }}

Scenario	Result	Why it matters	Copy
{{ row.label }}	{{ row.value }}	{{ row.explanation }}

Pair	Decimal label	Binary readout	Visible number drop	Gap %	Copy
{{ row.pairLabel }}	{{ row.decimalDisplay }}	{{ row.binaryDisplay }}	{{ row.visibleDeltaDisplay }}	{{ row.percentDisplay }}

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Storage capacity numbers are only meaningful when the unit family travels with them. A decimal terabyte and a binary tebibyte are both byte counts, but they divide bytes by different unit sizes. Decimal labels such as GB and TB use powers of 1000. Binary labels such as GiB and TiB use powers of 1024. The byte total is the fixed quantity; the label decides how that byte total is displayed.

This distinction appears whenever storage is bought, allocated, documented, or explained to another team. Drive packaging, vendor quotes, procurement sheets, and many product pages normally use decimal gigabytes and terabytes. Operating systems, storage appliances, virtualization platforms, and engineering notes often use binary math, sometimes with strict IEC labels and sometimes with older GB/TB-looking shorthand. Copying only the number can turn a clear capacity statement into a planning error.

A marketed 10 TB disk contains 10,000,000,000,000 bytes. Written with a binary tebibyte label, those same bytes are about 9.094947 TiB. Nothing disappeared in the conversion. The number changed because one TiB is larger than one TB.

Capacity planning often needs the reverse comparison too. A true 10 TiB target is not satisfied by a same-number 10 TB label, because 10 TiB is 10,995,116,277,760 bytes. The decimal label that matches that binary target is about 10.995116 TB before filesystem overhead, RAID layout, snapshots, compression, reserved blocks, recovery partitions, or vendor firmware behavior are considered.

Decimal and binary storage label use cases
Label family	Common use	Common misread
Decimal GB/TB	Drive boxes, vendor quotes, price sheets, and decimal capacity tables.	A buyer expects the same visible number in a binary platform display.
Binary GiB/TiB	Strict IEC reports, Linux and storage engineering notes, byte-accurate operations work.	A binary requirement is treated as though a same-number decimal label is enough.
Legacy GB/TB shorthand	Older or mixed displays that use binary math while printing decimal-looking labels.	The lower number is mistaken for missing or defective storage.

Decimal and binary conversion settles the unit-label part of a storage question. It does not measure usable disk space or predict what an operating system will show after formatting, metadata, parity, snapshots, compression, thin provisioning, or reserved space. Exact bytes are the anchor, but usable capacity still depends on the storage layer above the label.

How to Use This Tool:

Enter the capacity exactly as it appears in the source you are checking, then use the byte total and result tables to compare decimal and binary labels.

Type the capacity value and choose the source unit: TB, TiB, GB, or GiB. Use TB or GB for marketed drive labels and TiB or GiB for strict binary targets.
Choose Headline unit for the equivalent you want featured in the summary. The full matrix still lists all four units for the same byte total.
Open Advanced to load example presets, choose a custom decimal drive-label reference, set display precision, or switch between strict IEC wording and legacy Windows-style shorthand.
Use Brief reference when the explanatory brief should discuss a marketed GB or TB label that is different from the main input.
Check Conversion Matrix for same-byte equivalents and Platform Labels for purchase wording, strict IEC wording, legacy display wording, and exact bytes.
Use Label Crosswalk for same-number planning, such as finding the decimal TB label needed to satisfy a 10 TiB requirement.
Copy rows, download CSV tables, export DOCX tables, or use the JSON tab when the conversion needs to go into a report, support ticket, runbook, or procurement note.

Interpreting Results:

The byte total is the safest value to compare. Two labels that resolve to the same bytes describe the same capacity. Two labels with the same visible number can describe different capacities when one is decimal and the other is binary.

The summary badge names the current comparison. Binary label reads lower appears when a decimal GB or TB input is divided by larger binary units. Decimal label reads higher appears when a binary GiB or TiB input is written with smaller decimal units. Scale-step and cross-scale labels appear when the conversion also moves between giga and tera scale.

Conversion Matrix lists TB, TiB, GB, and GiB equivalents for the same byte total.
Platform Labels translates the current reference into purchase wording, strict IEC wording, legacy Windows-style shorthand, and exact bytes.
Drive Checkpoints compares common marketed sizes against their strict binary readouts so nearby drive labels are easier to explain.
Capacity Brief creates report-ready wording and includes any input guardrails that changed a value.
Same-Bytes Pair Check shows the fixed GB/GiB and TB/TiB gaps for the current byte total.

Technical Details:

Decimal storage units follow SI-style powers of ten. One GB is 10⁹ bytes and one TB is 10¹² bytes. Binary storage units use IEC binary prefixes. One GiB is 2³⁰ bytes and one TiB is 2⁴⁰ bytes. Because binary units are larger, a fixed byte total has a smaller visible number when written as GiB or TiB.

Every same-byte conversion goes through bytes. The source value is multiplied by the source unit size, then the resulting byte total is divided by the target unit size. Display precision changes rounded text in the matrix, platform rows, briefs, tables, and exports. It does not change the unit definitions used for the calculation.

Formula Core:

B = V \times U_{s}

V_{t} = \frac{B}{U_{t}}

gap = (1 - \frac{U_{d}}{U_{b}}) \times 100 %

B is the exact byte total, V is the entered source value, U_s is bytes per source unit, V_t is the displayed target value, and U_t is bytes per target unit. For the pair-gap formula, U_d is the decimal unit size and U_b is the matching binary unit size at the same scale.

Decimal and binary storage unit definitions
Unit	Family	Bytes per unit	Definition
GB	Decimal	1,000,000,000	10⁹ bytes
GiB	Binary	1,073,741,824	2³⁰ bytes
TB	Decimal	1,000,000,000,000	10¹² bytes
TiB	Binary	1,099,511,627,776	2⁴⁰ bytes

For a 10 TB source, bytes equal 10 x 1,000,000,000,000, or 10,000,000,000,000 B. Dividing that byte total by 1,099,511,627,776 gives about 9.094947 TiB. The same method works in reverse: 10 TiB contains 10,995,116,277,760 B, which is about 10.995116 TB.

The pair gap is fixed by the unit definitions. One decimal gigabyte is about 0.931323 GiB, so the visible number drops by about 6.868% when the same bytes are shown with the binary unit. One decimal terabyte is about 0.909495 TiB, so the visible number drops by about 9.051%.

Same-byte pair gap for decimal and binary storage labels
Pair	One decimal unit equals	Visible drop	Pair gap
GB to GiB	0.931323 GiB	0.068677	6.868%
TB to TiB	0.909495 TiB	0.090505	9.051%

Same-byte conversion and same-number planning answer different questions. Same-byte conversion asks how a byte total reads under another label. Same-number planning asks how much capacity is needed when the visible number must stay the same but the unit family changes.

Same-byte conversion compared with same-number planning
Question	Example	Answer
Same bytes	What is 10 TB in TiB?	About 9.094947 TiB for the same 10,000,000,000,000 bytes.
Same-number binary target	What decimal label matches 10 TiB?	About 10.995116 TB, because 10 TiB contains 10,995,116,277,760 bytes.
Same-number decimal label	What happens if the box only says 10 TB?	It reaches about 9.094947 TiB, so it is short of a true 10 TiB target.

Storage capacity input guardrails
Condition	Behavior	What to verify
Invalid capacity	The capacity is reset to `10`.	Re-enter the source number before copying a brief or table row.
Negative capacity	The capacity is clamped to zero bytes.	Correct the source value because storage capacity cannot be negative.
Custom drive label outside the supported range	The reference is clamped to `0.001` through `100,000` TB or `0.001` through `100,000,000` GB.	Check whether the reference was pasted with the intended unit.
Display precision set to 3, 4, or 6 decimals	Only displayed decimal places change.	Use exact bytes or six decimals when rounding could affect a report.

Legacy Windows-style wording is a label choice, not a different byte count. It describes cases where a binary calculation is displayed with GB or TB shorthand. Strict IEC wording keeps GiB and TiB visible so the unit family is unambiguous. Extremely large pasted values should still be treated carefully because ordinary browser number arithmetic can lose low-order digit precision at very high byte counts.

Accuracy Notes:

The converter is useful for unit-label math, procurement comparisons, support explanations, and documentation snippets. It does not inspect a disk, read a filesystem, measure usable capacity, or account for storage layout overhead.

Always keep the unit with the number. A value such as 9.095 is ambiguous without TiB, TB, GiB, or GB.
Use six-decimal precision for audit notes, procurement checks, and support cases where rounded values can cause disagreement.
Use the byte total when another calculation depends on the result, then round only for human-facing text.
Treat extremely large pasted values with care because low-order digits may not be reliable at very high byte counts.
After the label question is settled, check filesystem metadata, reserved blocks, snapshots, parity, compression, and platform-specific reporting before promising usable space.

Worked Examples:

10 TB marketed drive. Enter 10 and choose TB, then set the headline unit to TiB. The same 10,000,000,000,000 bytes show as about 9.094947 TiB. That is the unit-label gap many people notice after installing a new drive.

4 TiB operations target. Enter 4 and choose TiB. The decimal equivalent is about 4.398047 TB. A same-number 4 TB drive label is not enough for a true 4 TiB allocation before overhead.

500 GB support explanation. Enter 500 and choose GB. The same bytes are about 465.661287 GiB. If an older display shows about 465.66 GB, it is likely using binary math with legacy GB shorthand.

20 TB procurement check. Enter 20 and choose TB. The strict binary result is about 18.189894 TiB. Quote that value when an operations team will compare the purchase with a platform that reports binary capacity.

FAQ:

Why does 1 TB become about 0.909 TiB?

One TB is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. One TiB is 1,099,511,627,776 bytes. Fewer TiB fit into the same byte total because each TiB is larger.

Which unit should I use in a storage quote?

Use TB or GB for marketed drive labels and vendor copy. Add the TiB or GiB equivalent when the recipient will compare the quote with a strict binary display.

Are 10 TB and 10 TiB close enough to treat as the same?

No. They are different byte totals. A true 10 TiB target is about 10.995116 TB in decimal units.

Does this explain all missing drive capacity?

No. It explains the decimal-versus-binary label difference. Filesystem overhead, recovery partitions, snapshots, parity, reserved space, and device behavior can still affect usable capacity.

Why keep exact bytes in a report?

Exact bytes remove unit ambiguity. Rounded TB, TiB, GB, and GiB values are easier to read, but exact bytes are safer for audits, automation, and follow-up calculations.

Glossary:

GB: Gigabyte, a decimal unit equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes.
GiB: Gibibyte, a binary unit equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes.
TB: Terabyte, a decimal unit equal to 1,000,000,000,000 bytes.
TiB: Tebibyte, a binary unit equal to 1,099,511,627,776 bytes.
Same-byte conversion: Writing one exact byte total in another unit family.
Same-number target: A planning target where the visible number is fixed but the unit family changes, such as needing 10 TiB instead of 10 TB.
Legacy Windows-style display: A display style where binary math is shown with GB or TB shorthand instead of explicit GiB or TiB labels.

References:

NIST: Metric (SI) Prefixes, National Institute of Standards and Technology.
NIST: Definitions of the SI Units - The Binary Prefixes, National Institute of Standards and Technology.
IEC 80000-13:2025 Quantities and units - Part 13: Information science and technology, International Electrotechnical Commission.

TB/TiB/GB/GiB Converter

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TB/TiB/GB/GiB Converter

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Introduction

How to Use This Tool:

Interpreting Results:

Technical Details:

Formula Core:

Accuracy Notes:

Worked Examples:

FAQ:

Glossary:

References: