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       units, kilo, kibi, mega, mebi, giga, gibi - decimal and binary prefixes


   Decimal prefixes
       standard prefixes.

              Prefix   Name    Value
              y        yocto   10^-24 = 0.000000000000000000000001
              z        zepto   10^-21 = 0.000000000000000000001
              a        atto    10^-18 = 0.000000000000000001
              f        femto   10^-15 = 0.000000000000001
              p        pico    10^-12 = 0.000000000001
              n        nano    10^-9  = 0.000000001
              u        micro   10^-6  = 0.000001
              m        milli   10^-3  = 0.001
              c        centi   10^-2  = 0.01
              d        deci    10^-1  = 0.1
              da       deka    10^ 1  = 10
              h        hecto   10^ 2  = 100
              k        kilo    10^ 3  = 1000
              M        mega    10^ 6  = 1000000
              G        giga    10^ 9  = 1000000000
              T        tera    10^12  = 1000000000000
              P        peta    10^15  = 1000000000000000
              E        exa     10^18  = 1000000000000000000
              Z        zetta   10^21  = 1000000000000000000000
              Y        yotta   10^24  = 1000000000000000000000000

       ASCII context where this Greek letter is not available.  See also


   Binary prefixes
       The  binary  prefixes resemble the decimal ones, but have an additional
       ’i’ (and "Ki" starts with a capital ’K’).   The  names  are  formed  by
       taking  the  first  syllable  of  the  names of the decimal prefix with

              Prefix   Name   Value
              Ki       kibi   2^10 = 1024
              Mi       mebi   2^20 = 1048576
              Gi       gibi   2^30 = 1073741824
              Ti       tebi   2^40 = 1099511627776
              Pi       pebi   2^50 = 1125899906842624
              Ei       exbi   2^60 = 1152921504606846976

       See also


       Before these binary prefixes were introduced, it was fairly  common  to

       At  first  that  didn’t matter too much, since memory modules and disks
       computers were involved.  But then disk technology  changed,  and  disk
       sizes became arbitrary numbers.  After a period of uncertainty all disk
       manufacturers settled on the standard, namely k=1000, M=1000k, G=1000M.

       diskettes, M=1024000; etc.  In 1998 the IEC approved the standard  that
       defines  the binary prefixes given above, enabling people to be precise
       and unambiguous.

       Thus, today, MB = 1000000B and MiB = 1048576B.

       In the free  software  world  programs  are  slowly  being  changed  to
       conform.  When the Linux kernel boots and says

              hda: 120064896 sectors (61473 MB) w/2048KiB Cache

       the MB are megabytes and the KiB are kibibytes.


       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at