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Ask HN: Storage pricing: GB or GiB

4 points by esher 3y ago

I am designing a pricing page for our cloud hosting thing. DevOps suggested to use Gibibyte (GiB) instead of Gigabyte (GB) annotation. Binary calculation (GiB) is used under the hood (I believe). I think the actual difference is marginal. But I wonder if we are doing anyone a favor by presenting it as GiB. Most hosting vendors use the classical metric annotation today: - DigitalOcean: GiB - Google Cloud: GB - Vultr: GB - Hetzner: GB - AWS: GB - macOS: GB I see this has been asked before in 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13658889

stop50 3y ago
With Gigabyte the difference is not so marginal anymore(7.4%). With Terabyte its already 10%
- esher 3y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. I am not good at math.
  - stop50 3y ago
    I just copied it from wikipedia. The german version of the byte article has a table for this.
    - esher 3y ago
      I see! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#/media/File:Binaryvdecimal.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#/media/File:Binaryvdecima...
codingdave 3y ago
You should be accurate - charging by one, but communicating pricing by the other is just a road towards conflict with your customer.
mcsniff 3y ago
Pick your unit of measurement and use it everywhere. GB is standard enough and specific enough at that large of a size and most people don't know what the hell a "gibibyte" is anyway.
gus_massa 3y ago
piocodollars per byte https://www.tarsnap.com/picoUSD-why.html https://www.tarsnap.com/picoUSD-why.html if you want to scare all your non technical users.
- esher 3y ago
  Made me smile. That's interesting in this context: https://www.tarsnap.com/GB-why.html https://www.tarsnap.com/GB-why.html
stephenr 3y ago
Whatever you use, make sure it's clear what you mean: i.e. the `1GB = 1 billion bytes and 1TB = 1 trillion bytes` type footnote used on sales pages for products with a storage component. Consider who the target audience is. Technical users will know (or should at least understand if you provide more details) GiB, but non technical users are much more likely to understand GB.
Spooky23 3y ago
If you’re metering it, be consistent with your competition or places in adjacent markets. The risk is you can look expensive to a casual observer if they don’t pay attention.
lulznews 3y ago
I do a lot of work in this space and imo it’s better to use GiB notation since it’s a clear way to avoid any confusion.

4 points by esher 3y ago

stop50 3y ago

With Gigabyte the difference is not so marginal anymore(7.4%). With Terabyte its already 10%

esher 3y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. I am not good at math.
- stop50 3y ago
  I just copied it from wikipedia. The german version of the byte article has a table for this.
  - esher 3y ago
    I see! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#/media/File:Binaryvdecimal.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#/media/File:Binaryvdecima...

codingdave 3y ago

You should be accurate - charging by one, but communicating pricing by the other is just a road towards conflict with your customer.

mcsniff 3y ago

Pick your unit of measurement and use it everywhere. GB is standard enough and specific enough at that large of a size and most people don't know what the hell a "gibibyte" is anyway.

gus_massa 3y ago

piocodollars per byte https://www.tarsnap.com/picoUSD-why.html https://www.tarsnap.com/picoUSD-why.html if you want to scare all your non technical users.

esher 3y ago
Made me smile. That's interesting in this context: https://www.tarsnap.com/GB-why.html https://www.tarsnap.com/GB-why.html

stephenr 3y ago

Whatever you use, make sure it's clear what you mean: i.e. the `1GB = 1 billion bytes and 1TB = 1 trillion bytes` type footnote used on sales pages for products with a storage component. Consider who the target audience is. Technical users will know (or should at least understand if you provide more details) GiB, but non technical users are much more likely to understand GB.

Spooky23 3y ago

If you’re metering it, be consistent with your competition or places in adjacent markets. The risk is you can look expensive to a casual observer if they don’t pay attention.

lulznews 3y ago

I do a lot of work in this space and imo it’s better to use GiB notation since it’s a clear way to avoid any confusion.