Convert Terabytes to Gigabytes
Convert TB to GB using the 1024 multiplier. Covers hard drive capacities, cloud storage pricing, backup planning, and data center storage calculations.
Data Size
Detailed Explanation
Terabytes to Gigabytes Conversion
Using binary prefixes:
gigabytes = terabytes × 1024
Quick Reference Table
| TB | GB (binary) | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 0.5 | 512 | Small SSD |
| 1 | 1024 | Standard external drive |
| 2 | 2048 | Large SSD / gaming storage |
| 4 | 4096 | NAS starter |
| 8 | 8192 | Professional NAS |
| 16 | 16384 | Enterprise storage array |
| 50 | 51200 | Small data center |
| 100 | 102400 | Medium business storage |
Storage Planning for Developers
Understanding TB-to-GB helps with infrastructure planning:
| Data type | Approximate size |
|---|---|
| 1 million rows (CSV) | ~100 MB |
| PostgreSQL database | 10 GB–100 GB typical |
| Docker images | 0.1–2 GB each |
| Video editing project | 50–500 GB |
| Machine learning dataset | 1–100+ GB |
Cloud Storage Costs
Cloud storage is typically priced per GB per month:
- AWS S3 Standard: ~$0.023/GB/month
- 1 TB = 1024 GB ≈ $23.55/month
- Google Cloud Storage: ~$0.020/GB/month
- 1 TB = 1024 GB ≈ $20.48/month
The TB/GB Marketing Gap
A "1 TB" hard drive from a manufacturer contains 1,000,000,000,000 bytes (decimal). But your OS shows it as 931 GB (binary) because:
1,000,000,000,000 ÷ 1,073,741,824 = 931.32 GB
This is not missing space — it is a difference in measurement systems.
Use Case
A DevOps engineer planning cloud storage infrastructure needs to convert between terabytes and gigabytes to estimate monthly costs and capacity requirements.