If a gigabyte is 10^9 bytes, then why do common technologies use numbers like 32, 64, 128, 256 gigabytes instead of something like 100, 200, 500 to easily file into 10s?

Question

What is the purpose of these seemingly arbitrary multiples of 2

In: Technology

Answer 1

In low level, computers don’t work in base 10, only in base 2 (binary, only ones and zeros). Because of that, storage also have to be designed and organized in blocks of multiples of 2, when you see something advertised as a gigabyte (10^9), it’s actual size is a gibibyte (2^30). It’s just called a gigabyte because modern humans think in base 10 and it’s easier to estimate what 10^9 is than 2^30. Some websites actually have disclaimers to clarify things when they sell you a product (I think there are such disclaimers on Apple’s website).