Kibibytes

A kibibyte (KiB) is a unit of information equal to 1024 bytes. It is part of the binary prefixes established by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 1998 to distinguish binary data units from decimal SI units. A kibibyte equals 2^10 bytes, and larger binary units follow the same pattern: 1 KiB = 1024 B, 1 MiB = 1024 KiB, 1 GiB = 1024 MiB, and so on.

Usage and context: Kibibyte is used in technical contexts, particularly when describing computer memory and system reports, to avoid confusion with the kilobyte defined by the SI system as 1000 bytes. In practice, some software and hardware still report sizes in decimal kilobytes or megabytes, which can lead to apparent discrepancies. Modern documentation and many operating systems increasingly adopt KiB, MiB, GiB, and related prefixes to clarify the binary nature of the measurements, though common language usage may remain mixed.

Relation to other units: The prefix “kibi-” denotes a factor of 2^10, whereas the SI prefix “kilo-” denotes 10^3. As a result, 1 KiB is approximately 1.024 kilobytes in decimal terms. Corresponding larger units include mebibyte (MiB), gibibyte (GiB), tebibyte (TiB), and beyond.

See also: Kilobyte, mebibyte, gibibyte.