Mebibyte
From Freepedia
| Multiples of bytes as defined by IEC 60027-2 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SI prefix | Binary prefixes | |||||
| Name | Symbol | Multiple | Name | Symbol | Multiple | |
| kilobyte | kB | 103 (or 210) | kibibyte | KiB | 210 | |
| megabyte | MB | 106 (or 220) | mebibyte | MiB | 220 | |
| gigabyte | GB | 109 (or 230) | gibibyte | GiB | 230 | |
| terabyte | TB | 1012 (or 240) | tebibyte | TiB | 240 | |
| petabyte | PB | 1015 (or 250) | pebibyte | PiB | 250 | |
| exabyte | EB | 1018 (or 260) | exbibyte | EiB | 260 | |
| zettabyte | ZB | 1021 (or 270) | ||||
| yottabyte | YB | 1024 (or 280) | ||||
Defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in December 1998, a mebibyte (MiB) is a unit of information or computer storage. It is defined as
- 1 MiB = 220 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes
The mebibyte is closely related to the megabyte (MB), which can either be a synonym for mebibyte, or refer to 106 bytes = 1,000,000 bytes, depending on context (see binary prefix). The two numbers are relatively close together, but mistaking the two has nevertheless occasionally led to problems.
Use of mebibyte and related units is strongly endorsed by IEEE and CIPM and usage of the terms is slowly becoming more common.
One mebibyte equals 1024 (= 210) kibibytes, and 1024 mebibytes equal one gibibyte.
Mibibyte is a common misspelling, presumably from the "i" in the abbreviation or confusion about how the surrounding prefixes (i.e. "kibi" and "gibi") were actually formed. The "i" is actually from the end of the prefix. Tebi- and pebi- are similarly abbreviated Ti- and Pi-, but they are not usually misspelled, as storage sizes (and corresponding terms) currently are only this large in specialized situations.
