Ever been in a position where you just need space on your phone for another app? But you get a little pop-up saying that you’re out of storage and it’s time to get more.
Then begins the desperate act of deleting old images and other data to make space on your phone.
It’s a process none of us love.
If we just understood storage sizes better, we wouldn’t have to measure data and figure out cloud storage. Below, we break down the full details on data storage so you never see that annoying ‘storage full’ sign again.
What Is a Byte?
Every metric has a standard baseline, which is used as the unit of measurement to measure other things.
In the case of cloud storage, this metric is the byte. A ‘bit’ (singular) is the smallest amount of data stored by a computer. It can be a 0 or a 1.
When eight bits are put together, the result is a ‘byte.’ Bytes are the building blocks of storage amounts and the basis of various storage sizes.
Most Common Computer Storage Sizes
Computer size terms can feel complicated, giving absolutely no indication of how much space is contained.
Let’s take a look at the most common computer sizes below.
Kilobyte (KB)
A kilobyte is 1000 bytes. The prefix is used for other denominations of a thousand, too, that you might have noticed. For example, a kilometer is 1000 meters.
A kilobyte contains about as much storage as one text file with 1000 characters in it.
Megabyte (MB)
A megabyte is 1000 kilobytes. One megabyte can hold approximately a minute of music audio. So one album, for example, would equal about 750 MB!
Megabytes are considered on the lower side of storage options.
Gigabyte (GB)
Gigabytes are the most commonly used forms of data storage.
One gigabyte is the equivalent of a billion bytes. Most storage devices or cloud storage options would come in gigabytes. This is equivalent to about 250 audio MP3 tracks.
Terabyte (TB)
Terabytes also use the same logic of multiplying the value by the power of 1000. There are 1000 GB in terabytes or the equivalent of a trillion bytes.
This is equivalent to about 215 DVDs or 1500 CDs worth of storage!
Petabyte (PB)
A petabyte is the equivalent of 1000 terabytes! PB storage is more than the human mind can comprehend. It is the equivalent of storing 24 hours of footage for seven days of the week for 3.5 years. And that’s at 1080p quality! That is truly mind-boggling!
Never Run Out of Data Again
It can be easy to get lost in online storage, especially when it comes to data storage units and data size comparison. However, understanding storage sizes doesn’t need to be complicated.
Hopefully, this resource helped break down these concepts into manageable bite-sized pieces – pun intended.
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