I often find myself explaining the same things in real life and online, so I recently started writing technical blog posts.
This one is about why it was a mistake to call 1024 bytes a kilobyte. It’s about a 20min read so thank you very much in advance if you find the time to read it.
Feedback is very much welcome. Thank you.
I genuinely don’t understand your disdain for using base 2 on something that calculates in base 2. Do you know how counting works in binary? Every byte is made up of 8 bits, and goes from 0000 0000 to 1111 1111, or 0-15. When converted to larger scales, 1024 bytes is a clean mathematical derivation in base 2, 1000 is a fractional number. Your pedantry seems to hinge on the use of the prefix right? I think 1024 is a better representation of kilo- in base 2, because a kilo- can be directly translated up to exabytes and down to nybbles while “1000” in base 2 is extremely difficult. The point of metric is specifically to facilitate easy measuring, right? So measuring in the units that the computer uses makes perfect sense. It’s like me saying that a kilogram should be measured in base 60, because that was the original number system.
TLDR: the problem isn’t using base 2 multipliers. The problem is doing so then saying it’s a base 10 number
In 1998 when the problem was solved it wasn’t a big deal, but now the difference between a gigabyte and a gibibyte is large enough to cause problems
Using kilo- in base 2 for something that calculates in base 2 simply makes sense to me. However, like I said to OP, ultimately this debate amounts to rage bait for nerds. All I ask is that I’m not pedantically corrected if the conversation isn’t directly related to kibi- vs kilo-
Did you read the post? The problem I have is redefining the kilo because of a mathematical fluke.
You certainly can write a mass in base 60 and kg, there is nothing wrong about that, but calling 3600 gramm a “kilogram” because you think it’s convenient that 3600 (60^2) is “close to” 1000 so you just call it a kilogram, because that’s exactly what’s happening with binary and 1024.
If you find the time you should read the post and if not at least the section “(Un)lucky coincidence”.
I started reading it, but the disdain towards measuring in base 2 turned me off. Ultimately though this is all nerd rage bait. I’m annoyed that kilobytes aren’t measured as 1024 anymore, but it’s also not a big deal because we still have standardized units in base 2. Those alternative units are also fun to say, which immediately removes any annoyance as soon as I say gibibyte. All I ask is that I’m not pedantically corrected if the discussion is about something else involving amounts of data.
I do think there is a problem with marketing, because even the most know-nothing users are primed to know that a kilobyte is measured differently from a kilogram, so people feel a little screwed when their drive reads 931GiB instead of 1TB.
Yeah I’m with you, I read most of it but I just don’t know where the disdain comes from. At most scales of infrastructure anymore you can use them interchangeably because the difference is immaterial in practical applications.
Like if I am going to provision 2TB I don’t really care if it’s 2000 or 2048GB, I’ll be resizing it when it gets to 1800 either way, and if I needed to actually store 2TB I would create a 3TB volume, storage is cheap and my time calculating the difference is not.
Wait until you learn about how different fields use different precision levels of pi.
It’s not 2000 Vs 2048. It’s 1,862 Vs 2048
The GB get smaller too.