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When I do a df -H ., the free space is displayed as, i.e., 7.1G. If I do a df -h ., it shows as 6.6Gi. I think the difference in the numbers stems from the fact is that the latter assumes 1 GB as being 1000000000 bytes, while the former takes 1 GB = 102410241024 bytes. What is the meaning of the letter i? Perhaps related somehow to the inodes? I find the man page not very clear on this.

BTW, running GNU df would show in the two cases the same figures, but without the i.

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"Gi" or "GiB" is an abbreviation of "Gibibyte," 2^30 bytes. There are similar definitions for "Kibibyte," "Mebibyte," and so on, all based on powers of 2^10 rather than 10^3.

Prefixes for binary multiples (nist.gov)

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    Probably worth adding that, traditionally, some computer terms (mainly for bits/bytes, though usually excepting disk storage) have misused the standard K/M/G/etc. SI prefixes to mean powers of 1024 (= 2¹⁰) instead of 1000.  More recently, the newer Ki/Mi/Gi/etc. prefixes have been added to SI to take over that function and remove the ambiguity.  If everyone switched over to them, life would be much simpler — but it's taking some time…
    – gidds
    Commented Dec 11 at 19:37

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