tebibytes

Tebibyte, symbol TiB, is a unit of digital information storage equal to 2^40 bytes, or 1,099,511,627,776 bytes. It is part of the binary prefix set defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to distinguish binary units from decimal prefixes. The prefix tebi- denotes 2^40, and a tebibyte equals 1024 gibibytes (GiB).

In decimal terms, 1 tebibyte is about 1.099 terabytes (TB). Conversely, 1 TB equals about 0.909 tebibytes. This difference arises because TB uses decimal powers (10^12), while TiB uses binary powers (2^40).

Tebibytes are used in computing contexts where binary multiples are natural, such as RAM, file systems, and server storage capacities. Operating systems and software may display storage in TiB or GiB, while hardware manufacturers often advertise drives in decimal terabytes, which can cause apparent discrepancies between labeled capacity and what is reported by the system.

History and prefixes: In 1998, the IEC introduced binary prefixes—kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, tebi-, and so on—to reduce confusion with SI prefixes. Tebibyte is the official name for 2^40 bytes, with TiB as the common abbreviation. The term is widely used in technical documentation, data centers, and enterprise storage, though consumer marketing sometimes continues to use TB for both contexts.

Summary: Tebibytes provide a precise binary-measurement unit for large storage and memory capacities, contrasting with the decimal terabytes used in some marketing and general contexts.