GiB, KiB, MiB, WtF ?

[MikeW]

Hey.. I was just wondering why we don't use the correct abbreviations for these?
My kid oversaw my qBittorrent, saying; "oh, you're downloading 50 Men in black.."

Reference
bit = b
Byte = B
second = s

kilo = k or K
mega = m or M
giga = g or G
Tera = t or T
Peta = p or P
Exa = e or E
aso..

[FranciscoPombal]

Hey.. I was just wondering why we don't use the correct abbreviations for these?

What do you mean "wrong"? These are the correct abbreviations for binary prefix multiples.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix

Byte = B

1 KiB = 1 Kibibyte = 2^10 bytes = 1 024 bytes
1 MiB = 1 Mebibyte = 1024 KiB = 2 ^20 bytes = 1 048 576 bytes
...

These are slightly different than their SI prefixed cousins:

1 KB = 1 Kilobyte = 10^3 bytes = 1 000 bytes
1 MB = 1 Megabyte = 1000 KiB = 10^6 bytes = 1 000 000 bytes
...

Binary prefix is widely used in computing. IIRC, it is the default in most Linux distros, and though most people don't know this, it is also the default in Windows. Have you ever wondered why Windows "eats" your storage? For example, why a 512 GB capacity disk you bought shows up as "only" 476.8 GB on Windows? It's not because of "hidden system storage" or "overhead", or some other bullshit people spew. No bytes are being hidden. They are all there, the reason for the discrepancy is simple: the prefix is just mislabeled. Windows actually shows quantities in binary prefix bytes, but incorrectly labels them as SI prefix quantities, and consumer storage is traditionally sold and advertised in SI prefix (in this example, if you do the math, you find precisely that 512 GB = 476.8 GiB). So, Windows should actually show 476.8 GiB, for correctness - but it is definitely not eating your data.

[MikeW]

Oh, I guess I was stuck on the decimal/marketing ones, so you're off course right.
Many thanks for the info :

[FranciscoPombal]

No problem, this one gets us all at some point or another.