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