Digital Storage Converter

Yes, the RoughTools Digital Storage Converter is completely free with no account, subscription, or payment required. You can convert between bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB, PB, bits, kilobits, megabits, and gigabits as many times as needed at no cost. RoughTools is funded through non-intrusive advertising, keeping every converter permanently free. There are no usage limits, no premium units behind a paywall, and no registration required.

No account, email address, or registration is required. Enter a value and select your source unit — the converter instantly shows the equivalent in all supported storage units simultaneously. There is no login wall, no upgrade required, and no data stored about your conversions. The converter is entirely anonymous and can be used unlimited times without any sign-up process, whether you are a developer, system administrator, or student.

No. All conversions run entirely within your browser using JavaScript. The values you enter are never transmitted to RoughTools servers, never logged, and never shared with any third party. Once you close the browser tab, all data is gone. Your calculations remain completely private — whether you are sizing storage infrastructure, calculating download times, configuring data retention policies, or checking file transfer speeds.

Yes, the converter is fully responsive and works on all modern smartphones and tablets. All input fields and the results panel are optimised for touch screens. This is useful when checking storage specifications on device datasheets, comparing cloud storage plans, or calculating whether a file will fit on a device — directly from your phone while shopping or reviewing technical documentation on a tablet.

The Digital Storage Converter works in all modern browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Opera, and Brave on both desktop and mobile. No plugins or extensions are required. The converter uses standard JavaScript arithmetic that runs natively in every current browser. Any current version of Chrome, Firefox, or Safari on desktop or mobile is fully supported.

This converter uses the decimal (SI) standard: 1 KB = 1,000 bytes, 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes, 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes, and so on. This matches the convention used by hard drive manufacturers, cloud storage providers, and network speed ratings. All conversions are mathematically exact under this standard. Note that operating systems like Windows use binary units internally (1 KiB = 1,024 bytes), which is why a drive advertised as 1 TB may appear as approximately 931 GiB in Windows Explorer.

Once the page has fully loaded in your browser, all conversions run in JavaScript without requiring an active internet connection. You can enter storage values and see all unit conversions offline after the initial page load. The initial page load requires internet access, but after that the converter functions entirely client-side. This is useful for IT professionals working in secure environments or data centers without external internet access.

To convert a storage value: (1) Enter the numeric value in the input field. (2) Select the source unit — for example, Gigabytes. (3) The results panel instantly shows the equivalent in all supported units simultaneously: bytes, KB, MB, TB, PB, bits, kilobits, megabits, and gigabits. Results update in real time as you type. This is useful for calculating download times (convert file size in GB to bits, divide by connection speed in bits/second), or comparing storage specifications expressed in different units.

Search engines convert between one pair of storage units at a time. RoughTools Digital Storage Converter shows all supported units simultaneously in one view — enter a value in any unit and all others update instantly. This is particularly useful in networking and system administration contexts where you need to cross-reference file sizes in bytes, megabytes, and gigabits at the same time, such as when calculating bandwidth requirements or storage provisioning without repeated separate searches.

To report a bug or request an additional unit — such as kibibytes (KiB), mebibytes (MiB), gibibytes (GiB), or exabytes — use the feedback link in the site footer or visit the RoughTools contact page. When reporting a bug, include the value and unit you entered, the browser and OS, and the incorrect result versus what you expected. Feature requests for binary (IEC) unit support alongside decimal units are reviewed and prioritised regularly by the development team.

The capitalisation matters critically in digital storage. MB (megabyte) uses an uppercase B and measures storage capacity — file sizes, disk space, RAM. 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes (decimal). Mb (megabit) uses a lowercase b and measures data transfer rates and network bandwidth. 1 Mb = 1,000,000 bits = 125,000 bytes. Internet connection speeds are quoted in Mbps (megabits per second), not MBps. A 100 Mbps connection transfers 100 megabits or approximately 12.5 megabytes per second. Confusing the two leads to large errors when calculating download times or storage requirements.

Hard drive manufacturers use the decimal standard (1 TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes) because it produces a larger, more marketing-friendly number. Windows and most operating systems historically report storage in binary units: 1 tebibyte (TiB) = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes. A 1 TB (decimal) drive contains 1,000,000,000,000 bytes ÷ 1,099,511,627,776 = approximately 0.909 TiB, which Windows displays as approximately 931 GB. The physical storage capacity is unchanged — it is purely a display unit difference. macOS switched to decimal reporting in 2009, so a 1 TB drive shows as 1 TB in macOS and ~931 GB in Windows.