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0 pointscollectively8y ago0 comments

TIL they just completely redefined a kilobyte a while ago.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

orf8y ago· 2 in thread

Can you elaborate?

collectivelyOP8y ago

At some point, a kilobyte was 1024 bytes. Now, a kilobyte is 1000 bytes, and 1024 bytes is a kibibyte.

I mean, it does make sense. But it just sounds off to me.

seanp2k28y ago

Hard drive manufacturers have been doing this for decades. This is why the “80GB” drives were 74.5GB in Windows.

It’s more complicated with SSDs: https://www.anandtech.com/show/2829/7

EDIT: the official “kibibyte” was standardized in 1998: https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html so almost 20 years ago. Blame Windows and HDD mfgs for sticking with the SI definitions.

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