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04a Memory Units and Table

The bit is the smallest unit of computer memory, able to store a single 0 or 1. Eight bits form a byte, which can hold one character like a letter. Common units for measuring larger amounts of memory are kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes. A kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, a megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes, and a gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes. Common storage devices range in capacity from megabytes for floppy disks to terabytes for internal hard drives.

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61 views2 pages

04a Memory Units and Table

The bit is the smallest unit of computer memory, able to store a single 0 or 1. Eight bits form a byte, which can hold one character like a letter. Common units for measuring larger amounts of memory are kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes. A kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, a megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes, and a gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes. Common storage devices range in capacity from megabytes for floppy disks to terabytes for internal hard drives.

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Inomusa Mhlope
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Memory Unit of Measurement

Bit – Short for Binary Digit is the smallest unit of information on the computer. A single bit can hold
only one of two values: 0 or 1. More meaningful information is obtained by combining consecutive
bits into larger units. A group of eight bits (e.g. 1011 0010) make up one byte.

Byte (B) - is the amount of storage needed to store one character (e.g. a, c, +, =, %, 8). So, for
instance, a computer with 32,000 bytes of memory can store up to 32,000 characters in its memory.
Large amounts of memory are indicated in terms of kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes.

The table below indicates the prefixes used to denote large values of bytes. Please note the
actual values.

Prefix Abbrev Multiple Approx. value Actual byte value


Kilo K 103 Thousand 1KB = 1 024B
Mega M 106 Million 1MB = 1 048 576B
Giga G 109 Billion 1GB = 1,073,741,824B
Tera T 1012 Trillion 1TB = 1,099,511,627,776B
Peta P 1015 quadrillion 1PB = 1,125,899,906,842,624B
Exa E 1018 quintillion 1EB = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976B
Zetta Z 1021 sextillion 1ZB = 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424B
The table below lists storage devices and their typical byte capacity.

Fixed Device Capacity comment

Internal hard drive 100MB to 2TB + Very reliable

Removable devices Capacity comment

Not reliable
3 ½” floppy 1.4MB
(obsolete)

CD-ROM 700MB Very reliable

DVD 4.7GB Very reliable

Blu-Ray 25GB Very reliable

Flash memory 2GB to 16GB Fairly reliable

Memory cards 2GB to 16GB Fairly reliable

External hard drives 500GB to 1TB Very reliable

On-line storage 15GB free Very reliable

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