HEXUS.guide: Gigabytes and Gibibytes - What you need to know

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When talking about a binary number like computer memory or processor cache, where the memory is made up of a series of memory cells that hold single bits of information, the number of memory cells is always power of 2. For instance, 1024 bits of memory, what you'd likely usually call a kilobit, is 2^10 bits. However, kilo is a prefix for base-10 or decimal numbers, so it doesn't actually apply to that figure when it's a representation of a binary number. The correct prefix is instead kibi, so 1024 bits is really a kibibit.

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http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...lld19JRD0xMzc2

When I first read that title on the front page, I thought it was a dig at bit-tech.net, lol.

Mibs of ram? pah, GiBs here.

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Originally Posted by Lord Kordir

When I first read that title on the front page, I thought it was a dig at bit-tech.net, lol.

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Sorry for any confusion...

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Originally Posted by Dougal

Mibs of ram? pah, GBs here.

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wrong. GiBs of ram.

Cheers for the guide Kez ;)

I admire your dedication to technical accuracy, but realistically, it's never gonna catch on in the mainstream.

Whether it's technically accurate or not, it's taken years and years and years for the average person to understand Megabytes and Kilobytes as a method of measurement of storage/RAM on PC technology. There's not a chance that your non-techy PC user is going to start adopting ever so slightly different terminology.

Sometimes, whether we like it or not, technically innacurate language becomes accepted as the norm, and I think, considering the vast, vast majority of people are using Megabytes to describe the amount of RAM they have in their PC, I'm not going to start confusing people by asking them how many Mibibytes of RAM they want to upgrade their PC to.

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Originally Posted by Mike Fishcake

Sometimes, whether we like it or not, technically innacurate language becomes accepted as the norm, and I think, considering the vast, vast majority of people are using Megabytes to describe the amount of RAM they have in their PC, I'm not going to start confusing people by asking them how many Mibibytes of RAM they want to upgrade their PC to.

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But start quoting in Kibinibbles - THEN you sound smart

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Originally Posted by Mike Fishcake

I admire your dedication to technical accuracy, but realistically, it's never gonna catch on in the mainstream.

Whether it's technically accurate or not, it's taken years and years and years for the average person to understand Megabytes and Kilobytes as a method of measurement of storage/RAM on PC technology. There's not a chance that your non-techy PC user is going to start adopting ever so slightly different terminology.

Sometimes, whether we like it or not, technically innacurate language becomes accepted as the norm, and I think, considering the vast, vast majority of people are using Megabytes to describe the amount of RAM they have in their PC, I'm not going to start confusing people by asking them how many Mibibytes of RAM they want to upgrade their PC to.

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I don't buy it, not for one second. There's no real confusion if it's explained properly, and if people see it enough they'll start to take it on board. That happens with almost everything we write. From graphics architecture to CPU terminology to the correct binary representations of numbers.

The correct terminology is close enough to what's incorrect for there to be little confusion when seeing it written, and it takes only a couple of spoken minutes to explain the difference.

Everyone that uses a computer usually knows that binary is 1s and 0s. If they grasp that concept, they're most of the way there already. I'd rather stick my neck out and say, "well, hang on a mo, you're most of the way there but not quite" and correct someone, than leave them in blissful ignorance.

To refuse to reeducate, and to further refuse to learn something new is to be shortsighted. Everyone reading HEXUS should be able to follow that article and take something from it, and that's what Steve and I aimed for when we worked on it. You obviously understood.

Do what I do and write it correctly, then if someone says, "why the i?", explain it. Job done, you pass on some knowledge, the recipient learns something new. Surely that's exactly what HEXUS is here for? To educate its readers about computing? This is just one very tiny part of that greater goal.

Try this one:

Why is it that in france its Go Mo and Ko?

Surely "byte" is international?

because "bytes" would be pronouonced "beats", which, well, let's settle with the french term octets, okay?

as for it being confusing, have you never had someone ask "why is my 80GB hard disk only 74GB"? that's a prime example of the difference between GB and GiB that is (it's 80GB but 74GiB)

OCtets means 8 tho

yes they do. and a byte is 8 bits.

And the correct terms for France would be Gio and Mio.

Rys;

I wasn't talking about usage of it on Hexus; I was talking about mainstream usage of it out and about, in the newspapers, on the high street and so on.

I personally have no problem with using the terminology with other techies, the article was a revelation to me, and very interesting to read, but I'm thinking one step ahead (one step too far?) - I was thinking about this from the general public's point of view.

What do we do when we see adverts in newspapers or shop fronts for PC equipment where the measurements are incorrect? Do we just like it and lump it because tradition has dictated that's how it's been measured, or do we complain about it and risk sounding like patronising pedants?

I don't want to sound like I'm discouraging the reviewers on here from sticking to the correct terminology, but at the same time you can't expect people to change overnight when they've been using those terms for years and years.

This is an interesting article, but as long as people promise not to beat me with a big beating stick if I ever use the phrase "megabyte" incorrectly, I'll be fine with it :)

(Good god, I sound like a pensioner trying to get to grips with all this "modern money" :D)

I've been in IT for 20 years, and while that article is correct, it really doesn't help.

Leave it be lads, leave it be.

It's interesting, but not practical. The damage has been done and we're stuck with it like it is...

I think the article does help - if I didn't already know about it, I certainly would now, and I would try and make a note in future (although I often forget!). This article could persuade the community of Hexus to use the correct terms. In turn, other online communities might follow the same pattern, and many of these communities contain the IT/Network Mangers/Workers that teach others about computers. It may take time, but it is perfectly possible (and I'm not saying certain, merely possible) for something like this to filter down to the layman. But if you have no confidence, it'll never happen.

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Originally Posted by mike_w

I think the article does help - if I didn't already know about it, I certainly would now, and I would try and make a note in future (although I often forget!). This article could persuade the community of Hexus to use the correct terms. In turn, other online communities might follow the same pattern, and many of these communities contain the IT/Network Mangers/Workers that teach others about computers. It may take time, but it is perfectly possible (and I'm not saying certain, merely possible) for something like this to filter down to the layman. But if you have no confidence, it'll never happen.

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I think you're overestimating the technical ability of everyday users. Too much information confuses people.

To be honest, the useful gain from changing this entire system is negligable. Would it be worth the effort? I agree that it is perfectly possible, but, to put it bluntly, can we be arsed? No real gain.

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Originally Posted by Jonny

No real gain.

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Well, not only would we all be more accurate, but there might be less questions saying "Why is my hard drive is smaller than it should be!?!?" :P

I'm not doubting it will be more accurate. It will be more accurate, but just because it's accurate doesn't mean it makes it easier.

Techies have only just recently managed to get megabytes and gigabytes into everyday language; how difficult is it going to be to tell people "actually, we've been telling you wrong all this time. You see, because it's a negligible percentage out, we're going to need you to change the word you use. Oh no, Gigabytes *do* still exist, but they're a... what? Can you still use Microsoft Word? Yes, of course you can, but... what? No, no it won't change the way you use your... no, you've still got lots of space free, but see, 'mega' means a million, but 'mibi' means 1024... sorry, 10485... hang on, where are you going?"

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Originally Posted by Mike Fishcake

I'm not doubting it will be more accurate. It will be more accurate, but just because it's accurate doesn't mean it makes it easier.

Techies have only just recently managed to get megabytes and gigabytes into everyday language; how difficult is it going to be to tell people "actually, we've been telling you wrong all this time. You see, because it's a negligible percentage out, we're going to need you to change the word you use. Oh no, Gigabytes *do* still exist, but they're a... what? Can you still use Microsoft Word? Yes, of course you can, but... what? No, no it won't change the way you use your... no, you've still got lots of space free, but see, 'mega' means a million, but 'mibi' means 1024... sorry, 10485... hang on, where are you going?"

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:thumbsup: That's what I'm saying. I don't think we would gain from making it the new standard. We would lose out! We'd probably be better off switching the meanings of Gigabyte and Gibibyte.

Okay, perhaps the layman might never actually understand - but many of them don't understand bytes in the first place! There are various people that aren't hugely interested in the latest technology, or that read forums like these, but still have knowledge about these things i.e. what a byte, KB/KiB, etc is. I'd say it would be reasonable easy to explain it to them, and I think that would be enough people to know. In other words, all those that need to understand would understand, whereas the average end user probably wouln't need to know, so it doesn't really matter if (s)he doesn't understand.

There, I think I've explained myself... well, I know what I mean!

I'd always been confused about why we said giga and kilo.

I'm used to metric, kilometer, kilogram etc...

TBH University courses still teach the definitions as Kilo, Mega, and Giga, but they refer to the proper number as in Kilobyte = 1024bits etc.

While technically a bit of a faux-pas, the Kilo, Mega and Giga tags are just used as nametags more than anything..

Besides, kibi, mibi, and gibi just sounds crap, especially when you add "byte" or "bit" to the end - too many b's in one short word..

What I think would be better as a more acceptable solution to all people, was if the industry just used Kilo, Mega, and Giga to mean the Kibi, Mibi, and Gibi values, rather than trying to fluff up the sizes as a marketing exercise..

After all, that's why we settled on 1 Billion = 1,000,000,000 rather than the more technically accurate 1,000,000,000,000 - it was far easier to accept the inaccurate American version than go against the tide.

Technically a faux pas is fairly inexcusable when you're being taught something like Computer Science. I'm sticking to my guns here, hoping that our usage of it will perpetuate people learning the correct way. If even 1% of our readers pick up on it, that's better than nothing given that if you see the correct way written down, especially abbreviated, you can still understand the meaning.

If it was a confusing thing to do, I'd possibly think twice. All HEXUS titles for which I'm Technical Editor will migrate to the correct method over time, and we'll link back to the article we're discussing from a glossary of terms you'll see on the site at some point.

Rys, I think the only reason that it won't be a confusing thing to do is because the abbreviations for the "correct" versions look sufficiently similar to the "incorrect" versions that people will know what you're on about; but purely by mentally referring to the incorrect versions...

Rys:

Fair enough points, of course it's none of my business what you choose to do, but could you promise me one thing? Please don't criticise people on the board for using the more traditional terms, or nag them, because it could run the risk of sounding very patronising very quickly.

I wouldn't dream of it. I might now and again link to the article if people look to be confused, but otherwise I'll leave it to our copy to put the message across.

kibibits and gigibits - not to be confused with kibbles and bits :P

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Originally Posted by kasavien

kibibits and gigibits - not to be confused with kibbles and bits :P

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lol, genius!