Drive Size vs. Memory Size

You might be surprised to learn that drive size is different than memory size. So a 32 gigabyte drive is really closer to 28.88 gibibytes in memory.

Why the loss in size?

To make more money per byte, hard drive and thumb drive manufacturers don’t use the standard 1,024 megabytes in a gigabyte. Instead, they use 1,000.

This difference has created two size standards. For example: gibibyte and gigabyte, and mebibyte and megabyte. The “mega” and “giga”, regarding storage devices, refer to the advertised size at 1 gigabyte per 1,000 megabytes. The “mebi” and “gibi” refer to the actual size divided into one gibibyte per 1,024 mebibytes.