Storage Units

What you are actually practicing

Digital storage steps up in fixed jumps, and once you know the size of one step the conversions stop being a guessing game. The step is 1024, not 1000, and that single difference is what trips people up.

The same ladder explains why a file advertised as one gigabyte holds noticeably more than a thousand megabytes, and why drive manufacturers quote the decimal figure instead.

How the game works

You are shown an amount in one unit and a smaller unit to convert it into. Pick the correct total. A correct pick scores a point and a new question appears; a wrong pick costs time and shows the right answer.

Easy uses small amounts one step up the ladder. Medium widens the range. Hard uses large amounts, where the answers run into five figures.

The ladder

One kilobyte is 1024 bytes. One megabyte is 1024 kilobytes, so 1048576 bytes. One gigabyte is 1024 megabytes, so 1073741824 bytes. One terabyte is 1024 gigabytes.

Working down the ladder therefore means multiplying by 1024 each step, and working up means dividing.

A trick that works

Do it one step at a time and write the intermediate number down. Converting 3 gigabytes to megabytes is two steps: 3 gigabytes is 3072 megabytes, and the answer is 3072. Splitting the jump in two keeps each multiplication small enough to do in your head.

Another approach

Think in powers. A kilobyte is 2 to the 10th, a megabyte is 2 to the 20th, and a gigabyte is 2 to the 30th. Each step up doubles the exponent, and each step down halves it.

What to watch for

Read which direction the question goes. This game only asks you to convert to a smaller unit, so every answer is the number times 1024, never divided. The distractors include the number you would get by going the wrong way, so a wrong turn shows up immediately.