A kilobyte (KB) can refer to two different values depending on the context:
- According to the International System of Units (SI), a kilobyte is defined as 1,000 bytes (10^3 bytes). This decimal definition is commonly used for data transfer rates, hard drive capacities, and most storage media
- In binary terms, which are often used in computing memory and operating systems, a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes (2^10 bytes). This binary definition is sometimes called a kibibyte (KiB) to distinguish it from the decimal kilobyte, but the term kilobyte is still frequently used to mean 1,024 bytes
In summary:
Definition| Bytes in 1 Kilobyte
---|---
Decimal (SI)| 1,000 bytes
Binary (traditional)| 1,024 bytes
The decimal definition (1,000 bytes) is the official standard, while the binary definition (1,024 bytes) remains widely used in many computing contexts
