Digital Storage Basics

Overview

This lecture covers the basics of digital storage, including how data is measured and common units from bits to terabytes.

Digital storage uses the binary system, representing data as ones and zeros.
The term "bit" stands for binary digit and is the smallest unit of data in a computer.
Bits are combined to store all types of digital information, including texts, photos, and sounds.

8 bits put together form a byte, which can store a single letter or symbol in a text document.
About 500 bytes are needed to store a paragraph with 500 characters.

1 kilobyte (KB) is about 1,000 bytes, though technically 1,024 bytes due to binary powers of two.
1 KB can hold about one-third of a page of text.
1 megabyte (MB) equals about 1,000 kilobytes and can hold roughly one book, one photo, or one minute of music.
1 gigabyte (GB) equals about 1,000 megabytes, holding about 1,000 books, 1,000 photos, or 16 hours of music.
1 terabyte (TB) equals about 1,000 gigabytes and can store roughly a million books, a million photos, or two years of music.

A 5.25-inch floppy disk held 360 KB; a 3.5-inch floppy disk held 1.4 MB.
In the mid-1990s, 1 GB hard drives were expensive; today, 1 GB is a small and cheap storage amount.
Modern devices offer affordable storage in terabytes.

There are 8 bits in a byte, 1,000 bytes in a kilobyte, 1,000 KB in a megabyte, 1,000 MB in a gigabyte, and 1,000 GB in a terabyte.
Higher units include petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, and yottabyte.

Bit — The smallest unit of data in computing, representing a binary value (0 or 1).
Byte — A group of 8 bits, used to store one character or symbol.
Kilobyte (KB) — Approximately 1,000 bytes (technically 1,024 bytes).
Megabyte (MB) — Approximately 1,000 kilobytes.
Gigabyte (GB) — Approximately 1,000 megabytes.
Terabyte (TB) — Approximately 1,000 gigabytes.

Review the definitions and relationships between bits, bytes, KB, MB, GB, and TB.
Practice converting between these units for typical storage questions.