Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes and Petabytes: Which is Bigger and at what multiples?

IgboistReporter Thu 08 Mar 2018, 3:19 am

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Recently i help one of my female friend buy data from a data re-seller, 5GB sold for 2600 and she was very grateful and surprised at how cheap data cost in the black market, however the problem started when she checked her data balance and saw 5120MB, she called me to voice her displeasure and how the data re-seller was a thief, and that what he sold to her was 5120MB and not even up to 1GB. Well i'm not here to talk about my friend and her wahala.
To be sincere, many people doesn't know the differences between these storage capacities and many havn't even heard about it before, while many get so confused when dealing with the nomenclature of the memory terminology in digital world.

Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes and Petabytes: Which is Bigger and at what multiples?

Knowing which is bigger and which is smaller, as well as the abbreviations that represent these numbers, is probably the most helpful thing to get down. All of these computer technology storage units of measurement are based on the byte, which is the amount of storage required to store a single character of text:

Bytes (B) = 8bits
Kilobytes (KB) = 1,024 bytes
Megabytes (MB) = 1,024 kilobytes
Gigabytes (GB) = 1,024 megabytes
Terabytes (TB) = 1,024 gigabytes
Petabyte (PB) = 1,024 terabytes
Exabyte (EB) = 1,024 petabytes

Less helpful in the real world is the smaller bit (there are 8 bits in 1 byte) and the larger zettabyte and yottabyte, among some others. We won’t be sticking yottabyte size memory cards in our cameras anytime soon so they are not really important now.

To convert from one unit to another, just know that for every level you go up, you multiply by 1,024. Don’t worry if that’s confusing – you’ll see enough examples below that you’ll have the math down in no time.

NB: You’ll see many sources online say that each new level is 1,000 times greater than the smaller, not 1,024. While it is true in some cases, in practical terms, considering how computers use storage devices, 1,024 is the more realistic multiplier to do your calculations with.

Now on the most practical stuff…

How Many megabytes (MB) in a Gigabyte(GB)?

There are 1,024 MB in 1 GB.
1 GB = 1,024 MB = 1,048,576 KB = 1,073,741,824 B

Put another way…

A GB is 1,024 times bigger than a MB. To convert GB to MB, just take the GB number and multiply by 1,024 to get the number of MBs. To convert MB to GB, just take the MB number and divide by 1,024

How Big is a Terabyte?
The terabyte (TB) is the most common unit used to measure hard drive size and a number you might actually run into from time to time.

A single TB is a lot of space. It’s would take 728,177 floppy disks (you remember diskette right?) or 1,498 CD-ROM discs to store just 1 TB worth of information.

How Big is a Petabyte?
The petabyte (PB) is just a crazy large chunk of data but it actually comes up more and more these days.

To store a single PB would take over 745 million floppy disks or 1.5 million CD-ROM discs, clearly not an efficient way to collect a petabyte of information, but it’s fun to think about!

How Big is an Exabyte?
Talking about even a single EB seems a bit crazy but there are situations where the world really does run into this level of data.

Yes, it’s comical, but heading back to the previous comparisons: to get to just a single EB would take 763 billion floppy disks or 1.5 billion CD-ROM discs. Can you imagine?

Some more mind-bending thoughts around exabytes:

How Big is a Gigabyte?
Talking about the GB is a bit more commonplace – we see GBs everywhere, from memory cards, to movie downloads, smartphone data plans, and more.

A single GB is equivalent to a little over 700 floppy disks or just over a single CD.

A GB is not a small number by any means, but these days it’s a level of data we use up quickly, sometimes several times over each day. It’s a number we very much run up against on a regular basis.

1 GB can store almost 300 songs in MP3 format.
A single HD Netflix movie might gobble up over 4 GB as you watch. A 4K version might run over 20 GB!
A DVD movie disc holds about 9.4 GB.
Most smartphones store 64 GB or 128 GB of data (your apps, music downloads, etc.).
Like i showed in the MB to GB conversion a few sections above, 1 GB is the same as over one billion bytes. That’s no small number, but it’s not nearly an impressive of an amount as it once was.

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