Understanding File Sizes
In computer, file size is absolutely how much statistics the report contains, or the storage ability of the record. The file size of a laptop is expressed in measurement gadgets based totally on the byte. Commonly, report size devices use a metric prefix, which is normally megabyte, gigabyte, and terabyte and so on. In a few instances, a reporting unit may use a binary prefix which includes mebibyte or gigabyte.
A byte is described as a chain of 8 bits, which is sufficient to symbolize an unmarried alphanumeric individual, processed as a unit of information. A single person or letter could consume an area of 1 byte or 8 bits, letters or characters could consume two bytes or 16 bits and so on.
The reminiscence of a pc may be either volatile or non-volatile. The two recollections are different in the experience that risky reminiscence loses its contents whilst the device is switched off, even as non-risky reminiscence continues its contents saved even if a tool is switched off or in case of a power loss.
Units of Memory
A device processor comprises several decisive circuits, and each may be either ON or OFF. The states of being ON and OFF are represented by a 0 or 1. To count more than 1, the bits must be suspended together. As we mentioned above, a byte is a group of eight bits and a byte can represent numbers ranging from zero (00000000) and 255 (11111111, or in short 2ᶺ8 = 256 positons.
Bytes Can Be Combined to Form Larger Numbers
Memory is measured either in Kilobytes (KB) or Megabytes (MB). Ideally, a kilobyte would comprise 1000 bytes; however, the correct amount is 1024 bytes or 2ᶺ10. Similarly, a megabyte is not 1,000,000 bytes or 1000ᶺ2 instead; it is 1,048,576 bytes or 1024ᶺ2. This is quite a massive margin, and by the time you reach to gigabyte, which is 1024ᶺ3 bytes, the difference between the base ten and base two is nearly 71 megabytes.
The computer memory, as well as disk space, are measured in these units. The most important thing to remember is that when you see 12800 KB RAM, it means the amount of main memory the computer delivers to its CPU while 128 MB disk means the amount of space available for file storage as well as data and other permanent information.
Types of Units of Memory
- Byte
- Kilobyte
- Megabyte
- Gigabyte
- Terabyte
- Petabyte
- Exa byte
- Zetta byte
- Yotta byte
Byte
A byte is a unit of data with eight binary digits long. This is the unit that the computer device uses to represent a character such as a number, a letter or a typographic symbol. A byte is usually abbreviated as “B” while a bit is abbreviated as “b”.
Computer storage is measured in multiples of the byte. For instance, a 640 MB hard drive comprises 640 million bytes of data.
Typically, byte multiples are made of exponents of two and traditionally expressed as a rounded of a decimal number.
Kilobyte
In computers, a kilobyte is the smallest unit of measurement of memory despite being greater than a byte. A kilobyte consists of 1,000 bytes and is generally abbreviated as ‘KB’ or ‘K’. A kilobyte antecedes the megabyte. Technically, a single kilobyte is 1,000 bytes, thus kilobytes are usually used interchangeably with kibibytes, which is made of 1,024 bytes exactly.
Mostly, kilobytes are used to measure the size of small files.
Megabyte
A megabyte comprises of 1,000 KBs. It antecedes the gigabyte, abbreviated as GB. An MB or a megabyte is 1,000,000 or 106 bytes and is generally abbreviated as MB.
Technically, a single MB contains 1,000,000 bytes, and therefore, MBs are mostly used with mebibytes, which comprises of exactly 1,048,576 bytes.
Megabytes are used mainly in measuring large file sizes. For example, a 3-minute mp3 song compressed may be about 3MB in size. A high-resolution JPEG image could be between 1 and 5 MBs.
Megabytes are usually used to measure a Compact Disk’s space size, which is usually about 700 or 800 MBs, while the capacity of other media drives like flash drives and hard drives are measured in gigabytes or terabytes.
Gigabyte
A gigabyte is equal to 1,000 MBs and antecedes terabytes (TB). A gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 or 109 bytes and is generally abbreviated as GB. A gigabyte technically comprises of 1,000,000,000 bytes, and therefore it is synonymously used with gibibytes, which comprises precisely 1,073,741,824 bytes.
Gigabytes can also be abbreviated as “gigs”, and are used mostly in measuring the storage capacity of a device.
Terabyte
A terabyte contains 1,000 GB and it precedes the petabyte as a unit of measurement. Comprising 1012 or 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, a terabyte is generally abbreviated as TB.
A single TB comprises technically of 1 trillion bytes, therefore this unit of measurement is used synonymously with tebibytes, which is made of 1,099,511,627,776 bytes or 1024 gigabytes.
Terabytes are usually used to measure the capacity of large storage devices.
Today, consumer hard drives have a capacity of more than 1 terabyte. HDDs are now measured in terabytes, which may hold up to 2 terabytes of information while some servers and workstations with multiple hard drives may have over 10 terabytes of storage capacity.
Peta Byte
A single pet byte contains 1,000 terabytes and precedes the Exabyte. Generally, a petabyte comprises 1015 or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, and it’s written in short form as PB. 1 petabyte contains lesser storage capacity than a pebibyte, which comprise precisely 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes. For this reason, these two are not used synonymously together.
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