Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes
This is truly a source of endless confusion.
First here's a quick Metric review
In short you get
More or Less.
Confusion
The Basic unit of computers is the bit. This unit is to small for most measurements so bits are grouped together into bytes. There are 8 bits in a byte. This is where the confusion begins.
Instead of defining 1 kilobyte as 1,000 bytes it was defined as 2^10 bytes which is 1024 bytes.
1 Mb is approx 1 Million bytes.
More Confusion
And just to add insult to injury, marketing has now entered the picture.
Some manu factors of computer equipment have been calling
1 Mb = 1,000 Kilobytes = 1,024,000 bytes
While others have been defining it as
1 Mb = 1,000,000 bytes even
Currently there are no absolute standards when talking about sizes. Most manu factors will give their definitions in the product literature, but you have to know what you are looking for. For example, the Western Digital Hard drive manual, states in the fine print that Western Digital considers 1 Gb = 1 Billion bytes.
Your Milage may vary
Further Information
How big is a K?
This is truly a source of endless confusion.
First here's a quick Metric review
|
1 Kilo Mega Giga Tera |
One Thousand Million Billion Trillion |
1 1,000 1,000,000 1,000,000,000 1,000,000,000,000 |
10^0 10^3 10^6 10^9 10^12 |
In short you get
1 Kb = 1,000 Bytes 1 Mb = 1,000 KiloBytes 1 Gb = 1,000 MegaBytes 1 Tb = 1,000 GigaBtyes
More or Less.
Confusion
The Basic unit of computers is the bit. This unit is to small for most measurements so bits are grouped together into bytes. There are 8 bits in a byte. This is where the confusion begins.
Instead of defining 1 kilobyte as 1,000 bytes it was defined as 2^10 bytes which is 1024 bytes.
10^3 = 1000 2^10 = 1024 So now we have 1 Kb = 1,024 Bytes 1 Mb = 1,024 KiloBytes 1 Gb = 1,024 MegaBytes 1 Tb = 1,024 GigaBtyes And if you expand that table you get 1 Kb = 1,024 Bytes (2^10) 1 Mb = 1,024 KiloBytes = 1,048,576 Bytes (2^20) 1 Gb = 1,024 MegaBytes = 1,073,741,824 KiloBytes (2^30) 1 TB = 1,024 GigaBytes = 1,099,511,627,776 Bytes (2^40)This is why you will see articles that say
1 Mb is approx 1 Million bytes.
More Confusion
And just to add insult to injury, marketing has now entered the picture.
Some manu factors of computer equipment have been calling
1 Mb = 1,000 Kilobytes = 1,024,000 bytes
While others have been defining it as
1 Mb = 1,000,000 bytes even
Currently there are no absolute standards when talking about sizes. Most manu factors will give their definitions in the product literature, but you have to know what you are looking for. For example, the Western Digital Hard drive manual, states in the fine print that Western Digital considers 1 Gb = 1 Billion bytes.
Your Milage may vary
Further Information
How big is a K?