Units Of Storage In Computers

The various units of storage in computer science are the means of representing, storing and measuring data and information in the computer.

These unit ranges from the small capacity units such as Bit to the big capacity units such as Petabyte.

1. Bit: This means (binary digits) either 0 or 1 in the binary number system. In computer processing and storage, a bit is the smallest unit of information handled by a computer.
2. Byte: The byte is a unit of information consisting of 8 bits. In the computer processing and storage, a byte is equivalent to a single character, such as a letter, a numeral, or a punctuation mark.
3. Nibble: This is the computing term for a four-bit aggregation, or half an octet (an octet beign an 8-bit byte. In some computer systems, four bytes constitute a word, a unit that a computer processor can be designed to handle efficiently as it reads and processes each instruction.
4. Kilobyte: A Kilobyte (kb or Kbyte) is a unit of measurement indicating approximately one thousand and twenty-four bytes (1,024 bytes).
5. Megabyte (MB): Is a unit of measurement indicating either one million bytes or 1,048,576 bytes or 20²⁰ i.e. 1024x1024bytes.
6. Word: A word is a string of bits stored in the computer memory; large computers use words upto 64 bits long.
7. Gigabytes (GB): A gigabyte is one billion bytes. A gigabyte can also be either 1000 megabytes or 1024 megabytes, i.e. 1024x1024x1024 bytes.
8. Terabyte (TB): Terabyte stands for one trillion bytes, i.e. 1024 gigabytes i.e. 1024x1024x1024x1024 bytes.
9. Petabyte: This is a unit of information that is equal to 1024 terabytes i.e. 1024x1024x1024x1024x1024 bytes.

STEP 2: Putting it differently:

4bits                                        = 1 nibble

8bits                                         = 1byte

16bits                                       = 2bytes (1 word)

1,000bytes                                = I kilobyte (1kb)

1, 000,000 (10⁶) bytes                         =1 megabyte (1MB)

1,000,000,000 (10⁹) bytes                  = 1 gigabyte (1GM)

1,000,000,000,000 (10¹²) bytes = 1 terabyte (1TB)

1,000,000,000,000,000 (10¹⁵) bytes    = 1petabyte (1PB)

Converting from one storage to Another

Example:

1. Convert 700mb to bytes

Solution:

1MB                       = 1,000,000bytes

700MB                            = x

Therefore, x         = 700 x 1,000,000bytes

Ans              = 700,000,000bytes

Evaluation:

1.    Convert 8bytes to words?

2.     12nibbles to bits?

3.      25bytes to bits?

SUMMARY:

• The byte is a unit of information consisting of 8 bits. In the computer processing and storage, a byte is equivalent to a single character, such as a letter, a numeral, or a punctuation mark.
• Nibble is the computing term for a four-bit aggregation, or half an octet (an octet being an 8-bit byte. In some computer systems, four bytes constitute a word, a unit that a computer processor can be designed to handle efficiently as it reads and processes each instruction.
• A Kilobyte (kb or Kbyte) is a unit of measurement indicating approximately one thousand and twenty-four bytes (1,024 bytes).
• The Megabyte (MB)Is a unit of measurement indicating either one million bytes or 1,048,576 bytes or 20²⁰ i.e. 1024x1024bytes.
• A word is a string of bits stored in the computer memory; large computers use words upto 64 bits long.
• A gigabyte is one billion bytes. A gigabyte can also be either 1000 megabytes or 1024 megabytes, i.e. 1024x1024x1024 bytes.
• A Terabyte stands for one trillion bytes, i.e. 1024 gigabytes i.e. 1024x1024x1024x1024 bytes.
• Petabyte is a unit of information that is equal to 1024 terabytes i.e. 1024x1024x1024x1024x1024 bytes.