How much is 1 byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc.?

Question

How much is 1 byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc.?

Answer

Below is a listing of each of the commonly accepted disk drive space values. It is important to realize that not all manufacturers and developers use these values. For example, a manufacturer may consider a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 and not 1,073,741,824 bytes, we've listed the commonly accepted values in their binary base 2 values.

Note: All values expressed below are whole numbers. This means that a GB may show that it can only contain one 650MB CD but in reality 1GB could hold 1.5753... of a 650MB CD. Since we've created this document to illustrate how much each value can contain in whole, no decimal values are shown. In other words you can only fit one complete 650MB CD on a 1GB drive since two 650MB complete discs would exceed 1GB.

Tip: With the exception of bit and a nibble, all values explained below are in bytes and not bits since this document relates to computer storage capacity. For example, a Kilobyte (KB) is different than a Kilobit (Kb). When referring to storage, bytes are used, when referring to transmission speeds bits are used.

Bit

A bit is a value of either a 0 or 1.

Nibble

A Nibble is 4 bits.

Byte

A Byte is 8 bits.

Kilobyte (KB)

A Kilobyte is 1,024 bytes.

Megabyte (MB)

A Megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes or 1,024 Kilobytes

• 873 pages of plaintext (1,200 characters)
• 4 books (200 pages or 240,000 characters)

Gigabyte (GB)

A Gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 (2³⁰) bytes. 1,024 Megabytes, or 1,048,576 Kilobytes.

• 894,784 pages of plaintext (1,200 characters)
• 4,473 books (200 pages or 240,000 characters)
• 341 digital pictures (with 3MB average file size)
• 256 MP3 audio files (with 4MB average file size)
• 1 650MB CD

Terabyte (TB)

A Terabyte is 1,099,511,627,776 (2⁴⁰) bytes, 1,024 Gigabytes, or 1,048,576 Megabytes.

• 916,259,689 pages of plaintext (1,200 characters)
• 4,581,298 books (200 pages or 240,000 characters)
• 349,525 digital pictures (with 3MB average file size)
• 262,144 MP3 audio files (with 4MB average file size)
• 1,613 650MB CD's
• 233 4.38GB DVD's
• 40 25GB Blu-ray discs

Petabyte (PB)

A Petabyte is 1,125,899,906,842,624 (2⁵⁰) bytes, 1,024 Terabytes, or 1,048,576 Gigabytes.

• 938,249,922,368 pages of plaintext (1,200 characters)
• 4,691,249,611 books (200 pages or 240,000 characters)
• 357,913,941 digital pictures (with 3MB average file size)
• 268,435,456 MP3 audio files (with 4MB average file size)
• 1,651,910 650MB CD's
• 239,400 4.38GB DVD's
• 41,943 25GB Blu-ray discs

Exabyte (EB)

A Exabyte is 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 (2⁶⁰) bytes, 1,024 Petabytes, or 1,048,576 Terabytes.

• 960,767,920,505,705 pages of plaintext (1,200 characters)
• 4,803,839,602,528 books (200 pages or 240,000 characters)
• 366,503,875,925 digital pictures (with 3MB average file size)
• 274,877,906,944 MP3 audio files (with 4MB average file size)
• 1,691,556,350 650MB CD's
• 245,146,535 4.38GB DVD's
• 42,949,672 25GB Blu-ray discs

Zettabyte (ZB)

A Zettabyte is 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 (2⁷⁰) bytes, 1,024 Exabytes, or 1,048,576 Petabytes.

• 983,826,350,597,842,752 pages of plaintext (1,200 characters)
• 4,919,131,752,989,213 books (200 pages or 240,000 characters)
• 375,299,968,947,541 digital pictures (with 3MB average file size)
• 281,474,976,710,656 MP3 audio files (with 4MB average file size)
• 1,732,153,702,834 650MB CD's
• 251,030,052,003 4.38GB DVD's
• 43,980,465,111 25GB Blu-ray discs

Yottabyte (YB)

A Yottabyte is 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 (2⁸⁰) bytes, 1,024 Zettabytes, or 1,048,576 Exabytes.

• 1,007,438,183,012,190,978,921 pages of plaintext (1,200 characters)
• 5,037,190,915,060,954,894 books (200 pages or 240,000 characters)
• 384,307,168,202,282,325 digital pictures (with 3MB average file size)
• 288,230,376,151,711,744 MP3 audio files (with 4MB average file size)
• 1,773,725,391,702,841 650MB CD's
• 257,054,773,251,740 4.38GB DVD's
• 45,035,996,273,704 25GB Blu-ray discs

Additional information

• See the measurement definition for further information and related links to all measurements related to computers.
• How can I learn more about computers?