Convert Megabyte (10^6 bytes) (MB (10^6)) to Gigabyte (10^9 bytes) (GB (10^9)) instantly.
About these units
Megabyte (10^6 bytes) (MB (10^6))
A decimal megabyte equals 1,000,000 bytes, used widely for describing hard disk storage, file sizes, and digital media capacity. Manufacturers favor decimal prefixes because they produce cleaner, larger-sounding numbers compared to binary equivalents. For example, a "500 MB" device would be smaller in binary units. Consumers and engineers must interpret megabytes within context, distinguishing whether a manufacturer intends binary or decimal. Although decimal megabytes dominate mass-storage descriptions, binary megabytes remain common in system memory and software.
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.