Is 1 GB equal to 1024 MB or 1000 MB?

When someone asks you to convert 4096 MB to GB or 8192 MB to GB or something else, You might think of how many MB in a GB or Googling MB to GB convertor. But if I tell you that 1 GB is equal to 1024 MB or as well as 1000 MB, you will be shocked but yes, this is the case. Now, the question here is how? So let’s head you to the solution.

The value of an MB (or Megabytes) to GB (or Gigabytes) depends on in which context you are asking for. There are two cases, the first is Decimal Places and the other is Binary Places.

So what is the difference between these two?

In computers, everything is stored in Binary (having base 2). Due to this, It became convenient for engineers to use powers of 2 to depict size or memory addresses. When we talk about a Gigabyte then it is 1024 Megabytes in terms of Binary while it is 1000 Megabytes in terms of Decimal.

GB to MB

2¹⁰ = 1024, it is the closest to 1000, thus computer engineers use the term 1 Gigabyte to express 1024 Megabytes and 1 Megabyte to express 1024 Kilobytes and 1 Kilobyte to express 1024 Bytes.

Technically, it is wrong as 1 Kilo means 1000 and not 1024?

Now, Drive manufacturers use the “Standard” meaning of Giga/Mega/Kilo to manufacture any drive that means 1 Megabyte of drive space is 1000² and not 1024² bytes because they use decimal places. The International Electrotechnical Commission renamed the base 2 terms as “kibibyte”, “mebibyte”, “gibibyte” etc. but it is not used generally. This is also why your “2 GB” hard drive only has ~1.81 GB (Gibibytes) of space.