Question 1

What is the difference between a kilobyte and a kibibyte?

Accepted Answer

A kilobyte (KB) in the decimal system equals 1,000 bytes. A kibibyte (KiB) in the binary system equals 1,024 bytes. Hard drive manufacturers use decimal (1 TB = 1,000 GB), while operating systems often use binary (1 TiB = 1,024 GiB), which is why a '1 TB' drive shows less in your OS.

Question 2

How many bytes are in a gigabyte?

Accepted Answer

In the decimal (SI) system: 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes (10^9). In the binary (IEC) system: 1 GiB = 1,073,741,824 bytes (2^30). Most storage devices advertise in decimal GB while operating systems display binary GiB, creating the apparent 'missing space' discrepancy.

Question 3

Why do file sizes on disk sometimes differ from the file's actual size?

Accepted Answer

File systems allocate space in fixed-size 'clusters' or 'blocks' (typically 4 KB). Even a 1-byte file occupies one full cluster on disk. The 'size on disk' reflects allocated clusters; 'file size' reflects actual content bytes. Large numbers of small files waste proportionally more disk space.

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