Gigabyte to Megabyte Converter

Relationship Between Gigabytes and Megabytes

The conversion between gigabytes and megabytes is based on the binary system where 1 gigabyte equals 1,024 megabytes.

1 GB = 1,024 MB

Therefore,

1 MB = 1/1,024 GB = 0.0009765625 GB

To convert gigabytes to megabytes, we multiply the value in gigabytes by 1,024.

For example, 1 GB equals 1,024 MB, and 5 GB equals 5,120 MB.

Gigabyte

What is a Gigabyte (GB)?

A gigabyte (symbol: GB) is a unit of digital information storage equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes (1,024 megabytes) in the binary system. It is widely used to measure storage capacity in hard drives, solid-state drives, memory cards, and RAM.

Origin

The term 'gigabyte' comes from the prefix 'giga-' meaning one billion in the decimal system. In computing, 1 GB equals 1,024³ bytes (1,073,741,824 bytes) due to the binary system. The IEC introduced the term 'gibibyte' (GiB) to distinguish binary gigabytes from decimal gigabytes, though 'gigabyte' remains more commonly used.

Current Use

Gigabytes are the standard unit for measuring storage capacity in personal computers, smartphones, tablets, and external storage devices. They are commonly used to describe hard drive capacities, RAM sizes, data plans for mobile networks, and file sizes for videos, software applications, and large document collections. Most consumer storage devices today range from several gigabytes to several terabytes.

Megabyte

What is a Megabyte (MB)?

A megabyte (symbol: MB) is a unit of digital information storage equal to 1,048,576 bytes (1,024 kilobytes) in the binary system. It is one of the most commonly used units for measuring file sizes, storage capacity, and data transfer rates.

History and Origin of the Megabyte

The term 'megabyte' comes from the prefix 'mega-' meaning one million in the decimal system. In computing, due to the binary nature of digital systems, 1 MB equals 1,024² bytes (1,048,576 bytes) rather than exactly 1,000,000 bytes. This binary standard has been widely adopted in computer systems and storage devices.

Modern Applications of Megabytes

Megabytes are used to measure the size of medium-sized files such as images, audio files, documents, and small videos. They are commonly seen in file size displays, memory specifications, RAM sizes, and data plan measurements. Most modern smartphones have RAM measured in gigabytes, while file sizes are often expressed in megabytes or gigabytes.

Gigabyte to Megabyte Conversion Table

The conversion of gigabytes to megabytes for certain values are provided below: