Bits/Bytes

I talk about megabytes and gigabytes practically every day due to my music collection, frequent downloading, and lack of storage space, but I was unsure of what these words truly meant. I checked out the Indiana University Technology base which best explained the relationship between bits-bytes-kilobytes-megabytes-gigabytes. They even go all the way up to a "yottabyte" which is a word I have never heard of before.


A bit is the smallest unit - it can only be a 1 or a 0.

A byte is composed of typically 8 bits which combine to form something simple like a letter (i.e. Z).

I have never understood why computer storage is not saved by a system of 10s, but IU states that computers use "binary math." Thus, a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes instead of 1,000.

The largest denomination of space I have ever used is a terrabyte (TB) which is 1,099,511,627,776 bytes.


IU has a table of the equivalencies of each of these different sizes which I found very helpful. It is:

Unit	Equivalent
1 kilobyte (KB)	1,024 bytes
1 megabyte (MB)	1,048,576 bytes
1 gigabyte (GB)	1,073,741,824 bytes
1 terabyte (TB)	1,099,511,627,776 bytes
1 petabyte (PB)	1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes

What is a byte?

What is a byte? Seeing as it is the best way to start off, I first looked to the Webster Dictionary for a start point. According to Webster's Dictionary, a byte is defined as "a string of binary digits (bits), usually eight, operated on as a basic unit by a digital computer."
By this definition, a byte is a collection of bits in binary code, which is 1s and 0s for digital computers. They allow a digital computer to read and store information by reading the binary code and measure the size of the file. For example, if one were to look in their Documents file on their computer, chances are there would be a file saved reading a certain number of KB. What it means is that the file has a size of however many Kilobytes. Since a bytes are measured in groups of eight bits, one bit only equals .125 bytes. This differentiation is important between kilobytes and kilobits, because the file size is vastly different. (http://kb.iu.edu/data/ackw.html).