Convert Gigabytes to Terabytes
Gigabytes to terabytes is the conversion for rolling a big GB total up into the tidier terabyte unit — handy once your storage outgrows what GB comfortably describes. In the decimal convention that drives are sold in, one terabyte is exactly 1000 gigabytes.
Gigabytes to Terabytes conversion table
| Gigabytes (GB) | Terabytes (TB) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.001 |
| 2 | 0.002 |
| 3 | 0.003 |
| 5 | 0.005 |
| 10 | 0.01 |
| 20 | 0.02 |
| 50 | 0.05 |
| 100 | 0.1 |
| 500 | 0.5 |
| 1,000 | 1 |
The formula
To convert gigabytes to terabytes, divide the size in gigabytes by 1000:
terabytes = gigabytes ÷ 1000
A worked example
Say your cloud backup has grown to 3200 GB and you want it in terabytes:
3200 ÷ 1000 = 3.2 TB
The digits stay put — the decimal point moves three places left.
Decimal vs binary — the drive-label puzzle
This page uses the decimal (SI) rule: 1 TB = 1000 GB, the way capacity is advertised. Operating systems often count in binary, where a "terabyte" is a tebibyte and a "gigabyte" is a gibibyte — both a bit bigger than their decimal cousins. That mismatch is the classic reason a drive sold as "1 TB" shows as roughly 931 GB inside Windows: decimal on the box, binary on the screen.
When you'll use it
Summing several GB-sized drives or backups into one TB figure, deciding when it's time to move up to a terabyte plan, or comparing cloud storage tiers where the small ones are in GB and the big ones in TB.
Frequently asked questions
How many gigabytes are in a terabyte?
1000 in the decimal convention. So to go from GB to TB you divide by 1000.
Why does a 1 TB drive only show around 931 GB?
The box uses decimal (1 TB = 1000 GB = a trillion bytes), but your OS counts in binary and calls 1,073,741,824 bytes a 'gigabyte'. Divide the drive's real byte count by that bigger gigabyte and you get about 931. It's a labelling difference, not lost space.
Is dividing by 1000 exact?
In the decimal convention, yes — just move the decimal point three places to the left.