Elysia Tools
Navigation
Workflow Playbook
Convert between bits, bytes, and the decimal SI prefixes KB, MB, GB, TB plus the binary IEC prefixes KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB with the system of every number pinned down before you calculate.
Hubs
Data sizes wear two different suits. Drive vendors, network operators, and cloud billing quote decimal SI prefixes where every step multiplies by 1000. Operating systems, memory sizes, and plenty of documentation still display binary steps of 1024 and label them with the same letters. The IEC prefixes KiB, MiB, GiB, and TiB were invented to separate the two, and the cross-converters between the families are the honest bridges. Fix the system before touching arithmetic, because a conversion that starts from the wrong assumption is confidently wrong.
The lowercase b in Mbps and the uppercase B in MB/s differ by a factor of eight, and nearly every wrong transfer estimate comes from blurring them. Line rates arrive in bits per second, file sizes and quotas live in bytes, so rate-to-size questions route through the bit converters with the factor of eight written into the calculation. Doing this once as an explicit step beats repairing a schedule that was quietly optimistic by 800 percent.
Logs, APIs, and directory listings emit byte counts because precision is cheap for software and unreadable for people. Converting those raw values into KB, MB, or GB is what makes a log line comparable to a quota or an attachment ceiling, and the reverse direction matters when a script must compare against a byte-level limit. Keep the platform's convention in view while doing it — some document their limits in binary units while reporting usage in raw bytes.
The everyday work is stepping between adjacent units — a plan that outgrew its MB tier, an upload cap stated in GB, an archive approaching TB — and each step inherits the system question from the section above. For estimates, rough decimal arithmetic is fine. For acceptance, billing checks, and procurement comparisons, record the original value, both units, the chosen convention, and the result together, because a capacity number that cannot show its work is a future argument. And when a number really matters, convert it across both systems and reconcile — the same terabyte read through the decimal and binary bridges should tell one consistent story.
Workflow playbook
Establish whether the number is decimal SI or binary IEC, then use the KiB, MiB, GiB, and TiB bridges to cross between systems, which is what settles the missing-capacity question on every drive.
Convert line rates in bits to megabytes or gigabytes when estimating transfers, and convert sizes back to bits when checking what a link must carry, with the factor of eight always explicit.
Convert the byte values that logs, APIs, and disk listings emit into KB, MB, or GB that people can compare, and convert back when a quota or limit is stated in bytes.
Use the adjacent-step conversions for the everyday comparisons — plan sizing, upload limits, and mail attachment ceilings — while remembering which system the units belong to.
Marketing capacities and network rates use decimal steps of 1000, while operating system displays and memory sizes use binary steps of 1024; identify the source system first and convert across with the KiB, MiB, GiB, and TiB bridges rather than assuming one rule fits both.
Bandwidth counts bits per second and storage counts bytes, so the same letters mean different things; route rate-to-size questions through the bit converters and keep byte converters for storage, quotas, and file sizes.
Download-time guesses tolerate rough decimal math, but capacity acceptance, billing checks, and procurement comparisons need the original value, both units, the chosen convention, and the result written down together.