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Bytes and Gigs
Just what do those terms mean?
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By Tom Armet
mySeniorSite Staff
Do
you have trouble with how file sizes are measured.
If you do, you're in good company!
File
sizes tend to be one of the more perplexing issues
for both the fledgling and intermediate computer
user. So just what do all these file sizes mean?
Bit - The smallest unit in computing. It can
have a value of 1 or 0. You'd be hard pressed to
find a file size listed in bits.
Byte - A (still small) unit of information made
up of 8 bits.
Kilobyte(KB) - A unit of
approximately 1000 bytes (1024 to be exact). Most
download sites use kilobytes when they give file
sizes.
Megabyte (MB) - 220 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes or
1,024 kilobytes. Sometimes used to mean 1 million
bytes.
Gigabyte (GB) - Approximately 1 billion bytes
(1024 MB). Most hard drive sizes are listed in
gigabytes.
Here
are some examples to show you how these units of
measurement work:
A 3
1/2" floppy disk holds 1.44 Megabytes (1,474 KB).
A CD
Rom holds 650-700 Megabytes (though most programs
you get don't utilize the whole amount). This would
be around 450 of those 3.5 floppies.
A 20
Gig hard drive will hold the same amount of info as
31 CD ROMs or 14,222 floppy disks.
It
takes between 1-2 minutes to download a one megabyte
(1024 KB) file using the average high speed internet
connection.
A
typical page of text is around 4KB.
To
see the size of a given file, just right-click it
(in Explorer or My Computer) and select Properties
from the resulting menu (or Alt+ double click the
file).
Even
with the information above, it can still be
confusing, so here's a method of visualizing the
different units of measurements:
Bit
- Let's call this a regular sized marble.
Byte - Compared to the marble, this would be a
baseball.
Kilobyte - Now we jump up to a pickup truck size.
Megabyte -
Now
for the leap - this would be a medium sized sky
scraper.
Gigabyte - Take 1024 of the medium sized sky
scrapers and stick them together for this one!
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