Convert Floppy Disk (3.5", ED) (floppy (3.5" ED)) to Gigabyte (10^9 bytes) (GB (10^9)) instantly.
About these units
Floppy Disk (3.5", ED) (floppy (3.5" ED))
The 3.5-inch Extended Density (ED) floppy disk increased storage to 2.88 MB, nearly double the HD version. Despite the additional capacity, ED disks never achieved widespread use. They required compatible drives, were more expensive, and emerged during a period when optical and magnetic storage technologies were advancing rapidly. Their brief existence reflects an inflection point in storage history—where incremental magnetic improvements could no longer keep pace with the exponential growth in software size and consumer demand.
Gigabyte (10^9 bytes) (GB (10^9))
A decimal gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes and is the standard unit for hard drive and SSD capacities. As storage technology scaled into the hundreds of gigabytes and then terabytes, the decimal definition became more practical, allowing consistent scaling across consumer and enterprise devices. However, operating systems often report capacities using binary units, causing user confusion (e.g., a "500 GB" drive showing only ~465 "GB"). This mismatch persists despite standardization efforts.