Digital Units

Digital units and their relative capacities¹:

Byte: (10⁰ bytes)

A single digital character.

Kilobyte: (10³ bytes)

A small page of digital text.

Megabyte: (10⁶ bytes)

A small novel, or a screen-resolution digital image.

Gigabyte: (10⁹ bytes)

A symphony in hi-fi sound, or a pickup truck filled with paper.

Terabyte: (10¹² bytes)

One-tenth of the printed collection of the Library of Congress.

Petabyte: (10¹⁵ bytes)

All of the email produced in the world in one day, or about a half-million hours worth of television.

Exabyte: (10¹⁸ bytes)

Two exabytes estimated to be all the information generated worldwide in one year; five exabytes, all the words ever spoken by human beings.

Zettabyte: (10²¹ bytes)

Oprah Winfrey’s annual salary.

Yottabyte: (10²⁴ bytes)

Alot.

Footnotes

• ¹ Source: UC Berkeley (404 link removed)

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Designer. Developer. Producer. Writer. Editor. Etc.