This post should be one that you keep handy for reference. I’ve been approached with questions a lot in the past about “what is a megabyte” or “what is a gigabyte”. While I may not be able to break those answers down to the most tiny deal (because to be honest, I don’t think I could tell you anyway!), I can give you a break down as to how “mega”, “giga” and all those other bytes relate to each other.
First of all, “bytes” and “bits” are two different things. You may have heard both terms used interchangeably, however this is incorrect!
As computer hard drives get smarter, faster and bigger, we are able to put more information (called “data”) on them. This allows basic computer users to save a lot more music, photos, email, Word documents, and other files on their computer. When you save all of this stuff, it is saved to your computer’s hard drive (not to your computer’s memory, that’s different!).
All of these different types of files (music, photos, email, documents, etc.) are made up of tiny bits of data called “bits” (WOW!). A “bit” is the smallest unit of data a computer can use. A lot of these bits together form a “byte”. A lot of bytes will allow you to finish your dinner (joke!).
Here’s a breakdown of how “bits” and “bytes” relate to one another:
- 1 Bit = A Binary Digit (Basically either a “1″ or “0″, that’s all you really have to know regarding “Binary”
) - 8 Bits = 1 Byte
- 1000 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte
- 1000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte
- 1000 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte (used by today’s computer hard drives)
- 1000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte (starting to be used as hard drives get bigger)
- 1000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte (won’t be used for awhile!)
Now there are more than petabytes, but since they probably won’t be relevant for a long while (maybe not even in our lifetime), I won’t go into them. But you should get the general idea based on what’s presented here.
If you get right down to the nitty gritty of your basic Word document, which is, let’s say 20k (20 kilobytes), that Word document is stored on your computer’s hard drive as 20,000 Bytes, or 160,000 Bits (that’s 160,000 little 1′s and 0′s on your hard drive. Kinda cool, huh? )
So now when your son or daughter says “My iPod holds 30 gigs of music”, they are basically telling you that the iPod in their hand holds up to 30 gigabytes of music, or 30,000 megabytes of music, or basically 7,500 songs. You should also be able to understand why the iPod has replaced the 8-track, the vinyl record, the cassette and the compact disc (CD): because the most those hold is about 25 songs or less! CDs, the biggest form of media in that list, can only hold about 650-700 megabytes, or 74-80 minutes of music, respectively.
Now for a little test! Using the information in this post, I want you to figure out the breakdowns for a 10 gig (10 GB) USB Flash Drive / Thumb Drive (or iPod Shuffle, or iPod Nano, or whatever you want to call it; it’s all the same thing!) Post your findings in the comments below.
For a more in-depth explanation on Megabytes, check out the definition for Megabyte on Wikipedia.
For a more in-depth look at the rest of the breakdowns beyond “petabyte”, check out whatsabyte.com.
Still confused about this topic? Leave your question in the comments below and let us know!
Tags: Disk Space, Flash Drives, Gigabytes, Hard Drive, Kilobytes, Megabytes
