Tidbit #58 - June 14, 2011

Continuing on the subject of data storage, I'd like to familiarize you all with the system of units we have to measure electronic information:

• Bit: The smallest of the electronic storage spectrum, a bit is basically the building block of data. Ever hear of binary code? (0010101001100110) Every 1 in binary code is a single bit being turned on by a computer. Bits are small, even in the most primitive computers.
• Byte (B): Still one of the smallest units, a byte is made up of eight bits.
• Kilobyte (KB): Back when computers were first invented, if you had a kilobyte of space, you were the life of the party. A kilobyte consists of 1,000 bytes, 8,000 bits. (8,000 ones in binary code)
• Megabyte (MB): Whoa, slow down, there, speed racer. In the early days of computing, megabytes didn't even exist unless you counted the most advanced mainframes of the day, which could only hold a few hundred megabytes. Nowadays, a single song's electronic size ranges from 3 to 20 megabytes. A megabyte consists of 1,000 kilobytes, or 1,000,000 bytes, or 8,000,000 bits.
• Gigabyte (GB): Let's skip forward a few decades, to 1980. That's when the first gigabyte hard drive was introduced. A gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes, 1,000,000 kilobytes, 1,000,000,000 bytes, and 8,000,000,000 bits. Think about how much that would've shocked the people from 1953.
• Terabyte: This is still a lot of space for today's standards, although not shocking. A terabyte is 1,000 GB, 1,000,000 MB, 1,000,000,000 KB, 1,000,000,000,000 B, and 8,000,000,000,000 bits.
• Petabyte (PB): This is big boy stuff, even at today's standards. Only enormous companies like Microsoft and Apple use petabytes to measure their total storage. A PB consists of 1,000 TB, 1,000,000 GB, 1,000,000,000 MB, 1,000,000,000,000 KB, 1,000,000,000,000,000 B, and 8,000,000,000,000,000 bits.
• Exabyte: Don't mess around with the exabyte. An exabyte of information is a LOT of storage. An exabyte is 1,000 PB, 1,000,000 TB, 1,000,000,000 GB, 1,000,000,000,000 MB, 1,000,000,000,000,000 KB, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 B, and 8,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits.
• Zettabyte: Here's where we start getting into the units that no one's ever heard of. Not many amounts of information can give themselves the prestigious name of zettabyte. A ZB is 1,000 EB, 1,000,000 PB, 1,000,000,000 TB, 1,000,000,000,000 GB, 1,000,000,000,000,000 MB, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 KB, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 B, and 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits.
• Yottabyte: Starts to sound funny, doesn't it? A YB is 1,000 ZB. 'Nuff said.