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The mebibyte (a contraction of megabinary byte, pronounced MEH-bee-byte) is a standards-based binary multiple (prefix mebi-, symbol Mi-) of the byte, a unit of digital information storage. Mebibyte is abbreviated MiB.[1][2]
The unit prefix mebi was defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in December 1998. Use of mebibyte and related units is endorsed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) in contexts where use of a binary prefix makes sense, in order to protect the unambiguous definition of the unit prefix mega. Megabyte is sometimes used in place of mebibyte, or to refer to 106 bytes = 1,000,000 bytes, or even 1,000 times 1,024 bytes, depending on context.
The historical binary interpretation of mega is still in wide use by the consumer software industry and use of the mebi prefix is still not common. This leads to consumer confusion when 220 (1,048,576) bytes is referenced as 1 MB (megabyte) instead of 1 MiB. For example, the operating system Windows XP shows a file of 220 bytes as "1.00 MB" in its file properties dialog, while showing a file of 106 (1,000,000) bytes as "976 KB". Apple's Mac OS X 10.6, on the other hand, would report a 106 byte file correctly as "1 MB".[3]
In another example, the 1.44 MB floppy disk's storage capacity is calculated using 1,024,000 bytes per "MB" (i.e. 1.44×1024×1000), rather than 1.47 MB (1.47×1000×1000) or 1.40 MiB (1.40×1024×1024). The three size designations are similar in value.
In The Art of Computer Programming, Donald Knuth proposed that this unit be called a large megabyte (abbreviated MMB), though this usage has never been common.
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A mebibyte is a unit of measure. It represents 1024 * 1024 bytes.
A mebibyte (a contraction of mega binary byte) is a unit of information or computer storage, abbreviated MiB.
The mebibyte is closely related to the megabyte (MB). This can either be a synonym for mebibyte, or refer to 106 bytes = 1,000,000 bytes, depending on context (see binary prefix for background). The two numbers are relatively close together, but mistaking the two has nevertheless occasionally led to problems.
The unit was defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in December 1998. Use of mebibyte and related units is strongly endorsed by IEEE and CIPM and is slowly becoming more common.
One mebibyte equals 1024 (= 210) kibibytes, and 1024 mebibytes equal one gibibyte.
Mibibyte is a common misspelling, presumably from the "i" in the abbreviation or confusion about how the surrounding prefixes (i.e. "kibi" and "gibi") were actually formed. The "i" is actually from the end of the prefix. Tebi- and pebi- are similarly abbreviated Ti- and Pi-, but they are not usually misspelled, as storage sizes (and corresponding terms) currently are only this large in specialized situations.
   | NIST Prefixes for binary multiples - Definitions of the SI units: The binary prefixes |
| | IEC Prefixes for binary multiples - IEC - IEC in action | SI zone > Prefixes for binary multiples |
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