A gibibyte (GiB) is a unit of digital information storage that equals 1,073,741,824 bytes. It is part of the binary system, which is commonly used in computing. The term "gibibyte" was introduced to provide a clear distinction from the similar-sounding gigabyte (GB), which is based on the decimal system and equals 1,000,000,000 bytes. The prefix "gibi" comes from the binary prefix system established by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This system helps avoid confusion between binary and decimal measurements, especially as data storage capacities continue to grow in devices like hard drives, USB flash drives, and memory cards.