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Units

All data consists of only ones (1s) and zeros (0s), a bit. There are three base units.

Unit Size
Bit One (1) or Zero (0)
Nibble 4 Bits
Byte 8 Bits

There is quite the debate in the industry as to weather kilo, mega, giga, etc should have a special status to mean 1024 as opposed to the typically 1000 that they mean. The International System of Units defined these to be 1000, and ever since there has been an alternate naming scheme for 1024.

In 1998, the International Electrotechnical Commission introduced the kibi, mibi, gibi, etc naming for the use of 1024, as such there are two naming conventions, however the previously used kilo, mega, giga, etc naming is often mistaken for kibi, mibi, gibi, etc naming scheme.

Units for bits (1000)

Unit Size
Kilobit (kb) 1000 Bits
Megabit (mb) 1000 Kilobits
Gigabit (gb) 1000 Megabits
Terabit (tb) 1000 Gigabits

Units for bits (1024)

Unit Size
Kibibit (Kibit) 1024 Bits
Mebibit (Mibit) 1024 Kibibits
Gibibit (Gibit) 1024 Mebibits
Tebibit (Tibit) 1024 Gibibits

Units for bytes (1000)

Unit Size
Kilobyte (Kb) 1000 Bytes
Megabyte (Mb) 1000 Kilobytes
Gigabyte (Gb) 1000 Megabytes
Terabyte (Tb) 1000 Gigabytes

Units for bytes (1024)

Unit Size
Kibibyte (KiB) 1024 Bytes
Mebibyte (MiB) 1024 Kibibytes
Gibibyte (GiB) 1024 Mebibytes
Tebibyte (TiB) 1024 Gibibytes

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