IT Services Circle

Jul 5, 2026 · Fundamentals

Why Does a 1 TB Drive Show Only 931 GB? The 30‑Year KB vs KiB Mix‑Up Explained

The article explains that manufacturers label storage using decimal units (KB = 1000 B) while operating systems report using binary units (KiB = 1024 B), creating a roughly 7% discrepancy that makes a 1 TB disk appear as 931 GB, and shows that the same issue affects USB drives, phones, and SD cards.