1KB

1KB, or one kilobyte, is a unit of digital information. Its exact size can be either 1,000 bytes in decimal notation or 1,024 bytes in binary notation, depending on context. The symbol KB denotes kilobytes (bytes), while b would indicate bits. The discrepancy arises from the historical use of powers of two in computing, even though the kilo- prefix in the SI system represents 10^3.

To reduce confusion, the IEC introduced binary prefixes such as KiB for 1,024 bytes, MiB for 1,024 KiB, and so on. In practice, many software programs and operating systems still use KB to mean 1,024 bytes in memory- and file-size contexts, while storage device marketing often uses the decimal convention of 1,000 bytes. Consequently, 1 KB can equal 1,000 or 1,024 bytes; in bits this corresponds to 8,000 or 8,192 bits. As a result, 1 KB is about 0.976 KiB.

In usage, 1 KB represents a small amount of data. A plain ASCII text file containing about a thousand characters is roughly 1 KB. A short e-mail or a small code snippet falls in this range. Larger files, such as most images or audio snippets, are typically measured in kilobytes, megabytes, or larger units. In computing contexts such as memory and file systems, 1 KB is commonly used as a basic block size or data unit, while disk sectors and memory pages may be 512 bytes, 1,024 bytes (1 KB), or 4 KB, depending on the system.