Units of measure have been around for a long time because they make it much easier to compare similar items.
The list of systems and units used to measure different elements is endless. There are different units of measurement that refer to distances, weights, clothing, paper measurements, memory capacity of electronic devices, and many more.
The fact that there are so many of them sometimes makes it difficult to remember how they relate to each other and how they compare.
For example, in the case of the memory capacity of electronic devices, a question may arise: Is a GB or a kB bigger?
For some people this question does not make any sense since we have seen the memory of devices grow from the 720 kB Sony floppy disks that appeared over 40 years ago to the present day where there are hard disks of several TB (Terabytes) and many devices with several Gigabytes (GB).
Although we will go into more detail below, to save you from reading on, and answer your question:
Is GB bigger than kB?
A GB is bigger than a kB, specifically a Gigabyte (GB) is 1,048,576 KiloBytes (kB) using the Binary system.
If you use the Decimal base system, then 1 GB is 1,000,000 kB.
What is the relationship between a Gigabyte and a kilobyte?
In computing and in the digital world there is a number that stands out above the rest and this is the number 2.
Digitization is based on a binary system (zeros and ones) so any unit of digital measurement will always be based on the number 2.
A GB and a kB are two non consecutive units of measurement when measuring memory capacity, so 1 Gigabyte is 220 Kilobytes.
How many bytes is a GB
A Gigabyte (GB) is equivalent to 1,073,741,824 bytes (230 bytes) when the Binary system is used or 1,000,000,000 bytes (109 bytes) using the Decimal system.
How many bytes is a kB
A Kilobyte (kB) is equivalent to 1,024 bytes (210 bytes) when the Binary system is used or 1,000 bytes (103 bytes) using the Decimal system.
Digital Information Units comparison table. Where is the GB and kB in the table?
| Byte | Kilobyte | Megabyte | Gigabyte | Terabyte |
| 1024 bytes | 1024 kB | 1024 MB | 1024 GB | |
| 20 bytes | 210 bytes | 220 bytes | 230 bytes | 240 bytes |
| 100 bytes | 103 bytes | 106 bytes | 109 bytes | 1012 bytes |
What is bigger, GB or kB?
As we have seen, a Gigabyte (GB) is bigger than a Kilobyte (kB). A Gigabyte is the third unit of measurement above the minimum memory unit used to measure memory capacity of electronic devices which is the byte and in the case of the kilobyte is the first and therefore smaller.
Other digital information Units comparisons
Photo by Sajad Nori on Unsplash
