SI: For 1000, it is kB, MB, GB IEC: For 1024, it is KiB, MiB, GiB JEDEC: For 1024, it is KB, MB (conflicts with SI, of course) Ultimately, what we decided is for RAM use IEC and for Disk use SI. This is what docker does and also suggested here - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8632269/displaying-file-size-1000b-1kb-or-1024b-1kb