| Name |
Equal to: |
Size in Bytes |
| Bit |
1 bit |
1/8 |
| Nibble |
4 bits |
1/2 (rare) |
| Byte |
8 bits |
1 |
| Kilobyte |
1,024 bytes |
1,024 |
| Megabyte |
1,024 kilobytes |
1,048,576 |
| Gigabyte |
1,024 megabytes |
1,073,741,824 |
| Terrabyte |
1,024 gigabytes |
1,099,511,627,776 |
| Petabyte |
1,024 terrabytes |
1,125,899,906,842,624 |
| Exabyte |
1,024 petabytes |
1,152,921,504,606,846,976 |
| Zettabyte |
1,024 exabytes |
1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 |
| Yottabyte |
1,024 zettabytes |
1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 |
Then there is the hypothetical "Googolbyte" which would be
a number of bytes equal to a 10 followed by 100 zeroes.
| Name |
Example(s)
of Size |
| Byte |
A single letter, like "A." |
| Kilobyte |
A 14-line e-mail. A pretty lengthy
paragraph of text. |
| Megabyte |
A good sized novel. Shelley's
"Frankenstein" is only about four-fifths of a megabyte. |
| Gigabyte |
The multi-player version of
Diablo II, installed. About 300 MP3s. About 40 minutes of
video at DVD quality (this varies, depending on maker). A
CD holds about three-fourths of a gigabyte. |
| Terrabyte |
About thirty and a half weeks
worth of high-quality audio. Statistically, the average person
has spoken about this much by age 25. |
| Petabyte |
The amount of data available
on the web in the year 2000 is thought to occupy 8 petabytes
(theorized by Roy Williams). |
| Exabyte |
In a world with a population
of 3 billion, all information generated anually in any form
would occupy a single exabyte. Supposedly, everything ever
said by everyone who is or has lived on the planet Earth would
take up 5 exabytes. |
| Zettabyte |
Three hundred trillion MP3s;
Two hundred billion DVDs. If every person living in the year
2000 had had a 180 gigabyte hard drive filled completely with
data, all the data on all those drives would occupy 1 zettabyte. |
| Yottabyte |
??? |
|
|
