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Media Storage Unit Converter

Convert media file sizes between MB, GB, TB, PB, and binary units, then save common conversions for camera cards, proxies, archives, and cloud storage planning.

Why this tool is useful

Media workflows run on two different definitions of a gigabyte at the same time. Camera manufacturers, cloud providers, and transfer specs use decimal units where 1 GB is 1,000 megabytes. Operating systems, storage utilities, and most technical reports use binary units where 1 GiB is 1,024 mebibytes, and many of them still label it "GB". The gap starts at about 7 percent and widens with scale.

That difference is why a 1 TB drive shows up as roughly 931 GB in Finder, and why a 500 TB archive quote and a 500 TB storage report can describe different amounts of data. This converter moves values between decimal and binary units so you can compare a camera card spec, a cloud invoice, and an operating system readout without doing the arithmetic twice.

Convert storage units

From

Converted value

Result

1.0000 TB

To

Saved conversions

Save common conversions for camera card capacities, proxy storage, archive targets, or vendor storage quotes.

No saved conversions yet.

Example use cases

  • Reconciling a cloud invoice with a storage report

    Check whether a billing figure and an internal capacity report disagree because of real usage or only because one is decimal and the other is binary.

  • Checking whether an offload actually fits

    Convert a card capacity quoted in decimal GB against the free space your operating system reports in binary units before committing to an offload.

  • Writing a delivery or archive spec

    State capacity requirements in explicit units so a vendor cannot read a number the way that suits them.

FAQ

A gigabyte (GB) is a decimal unit equal to 1,000 megabytes, or 1,000,000,000 bytes. A gibibyte (GiB) is a binary unit equal to 1,024 mebibytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes. A GiB is therefore about 7.4 percent larger than a GB. The confusion is that many operating systems and applications display binary values but label them with decimal units, so a figure shown as "GB" may actually be gibibytes. The same mismatch applies at every scale: MB and MiB, TB and TiB, PB and PiB.
The drive really does hold 1 terabyte in decimal units, which is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, and that is what the manufacturer sells. Your operating system divides that byte count by 1,024 three times instead of 1,000, which gives about 931, and then labels the result "GB". Nothing is missing from the drive. The two numbers describe the same capacity in two different unit systems. The gap grows with size, so a 20 TB drive reports as roughly 18.2 TB.
Most major cloud storage providers bill in decimal units, so a charge for 1 TB of stored data means 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. Some services and many on-premises storage systems report in binary units instead. When you are comparing quotes or reconciling a bill against your own measurements, confirm which convention each side is using before concluding there is a discrepancy, because a 7 to 10 percent difference at petabyte scale is a large number that usually has a boring explanation.
Use decimal units and say so explicitly, because that is what storage vendors, cloud providers, and camera manufacturers quote. Writing "5 TB (decimal, 5,000,000,000,000 bytes)" removes the ambiguity entirely and costs one line. If your archive system reports in binary units, note both figures. Specs that just say "5 TB" leave a several-hundred-gigabyte question open, and on a long-running archive contract that ambiguity eventually becomes an invoice dispute.