Today I have a Hardware test in my web designer course. Nope, we'll not burn computers today Though we'll have to calculate between GB and KB.
My question here is, when you convert these values without a good calc, which value do you use? 1024 or 1000? 1000 makes the thing a lot easier, but my teacher son of a whore will give only half point if we calculate using 1000. :\

1000 Would Be easier, but 1024 would give you the exact Value

1024 bytes = 1 KB
1000 KB = 1 MB
1000 MB = 1 GB

So, 1 GB = 1024000000 Bytes.. (not sure )

I recommend that you use the exact value if, the teacher would reduce your mark

1000 Would Be easier, but 1024 would give you the exact Value

1024 bytes = 1 KB
1000 KB = 1 MB
1000 MB = 1 GB

So, 1 GB = 1024000000 Bytes.. (not sure )

I recommend that you use the exact value if, the teacher would reduce your mark

Actually, they are all multiples of 1024 (or, actually, 2^10). It's actually pretty easy to do your computations just by multiplying by 2 10 times for each conversion. (Doubling numbers without a calculator isn't hard at all, just keep a tally for each iteration.)

So, in terms of bytes:
1 KB = 1024 (2^10) bytes
1 MB = 1024 (2^10) KB = 1048576 (2^20) bytes
1 GB = 1024 (2^10) MB = 1048576 (2^20) KB = 1073741824 (2^30) bytes

I believe what RealOne is referring to is the new term (used by sneaky harddrive manufacturers) of MiB and GiB, which multiply by 10 for the previous iteration. There's some ambiguity in the terms, but as a general rule of thumb, just use the power of 2 convention unless otherwise explicitly stated.

Yea, Thats what I was referring to

I forgot how to do it.. I had learned it three years ago in my Computing Class..

I am too lazy to multiply by 1024. :/

Since I pretty much know most common conversions off the top of my head, I stay with 1024.

:X
I would agree with 1024 if I had a calculator that supports more than 8 digits. I want to see you calculating by hand 5,3 * 1024^2

I hate hard drive manufacturers for mixing both.

:X
I would agree with 1024 if I had a calculator that supports more than 8 digits. I want to see you calculating by hand 5,3 * 1024^2

Simple. Say it's 20 gig, so 1024x1024=1048576x1024=1073741824 kb per gig, so, 1073741824x20=21474836480 kb for 20 gigs.

Ok, now close the windows calc

I hate my teacher by forcing us to calculate such painful numbers. :/

1024 all the way. Its more percise.  I had a teacher that wanted us to use 1000 instead of 1024, and that just hurt me to know that they are 24 units off, but with a large degree of error. On a somewhat different note...I like base 8 and 16 better.

This post was last modified: 09-17-2006 03:10 AM by schattenberg.

Can't you just be lazy and write it as a power or 2?

i prefer 1024
if use 1000 to calculate, it'll get only an approximate value
most of the HDD maker, use 1000 instead of 1024
so, when the HDD is become larger, a difference becomes more marked
eg. in 200 GB HDD, there doesn't have exact 214,748,364,800 bytes (200 GB)
there only have 200,000,000,000 bytes, because they use 1000 instead of 1024
so the HDD will have 186.26 GB only
there's lost of 6.87 percentage of every HDD that must have normally

PS: but i'm not sure about this

ohgod didn't know you guys were sooo perfectionists

You're (kinda) right, Gilgamesh. To be absolutely accurate, KiB, MiB, GiB and TiB should be used for for 1024^n and KB, MB, GB and TB should be used for 1000^n. It really makes things more simple. The whole system suffers from a confused nomenclature and really should rely solely on binary prefixes. Then again, this would hurt the HDD manufacturers' bottom line, so, well, I wouldn't count on it.