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Originally Posted by BBKing
Oo pem...
Lecture on the difference between data storage and data transmission. Storage is always measured in bytes (=8 bits). Multiple bytes are measure up in exact powers of two (kByte is 1024 for instance).
Transmission is always always always measured in bits. Just because IE reports your transfer speed in bytes doesn't mean you should listen to it, it's measuring transfer of a file, rather than a transmission of data.
Network professionals measure everything in bits, and a kilo is a kilo, as in 1000, as in a kilometer. Properly, in other words :P
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Strictly speaking, no matter if it's bits or Bytes, a kilo is 1000 and mega is 1,000,000 according to the scientific standards for units of measurement, but not everyone uses the prefixes correctly.
Storage manufacturers (hard disc and flash memory in particular. but not RAM), in the same way as network engineers, actually use the IEEE standard for the kilo/mega unit of measurement where, for example, 1MB = 1,000,000 bytes. However operating systems and memory manufacturers (as in RAM) use the 1024 multiples (including for measuring storage). This is where a lot of quoted storage and the reported storage causes confusion (not counting space for formatting).
On a side note, because of the confusion with the kilo/mega prefix having been used incorrectly for years, there are new prefixes the IEC approved (though it's yet to be adopted by other standards bodies)...
one kibibit 1 Kibit = 2^10 bit = 1024 bit
one kilobit 1 kbit = 10^3 bit = 1000 bit
one mebibyte 1 MiB = 2^20 B = 1 048 576 B
one megabyte 1 MB = 10^6 B = 1 000 000 B
one gibibyte 1 GiB = 2^30 B = 1 073 741 824 B
one gigabyte 1 GB = 10^9 B = 1 000 000 000 B
taken from...
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html