File Sizes

A byte is a sequence of 8 bits (enough to represent one alphanumeric character) processed as a single unit of information. A single letter or character would use one byte of memory (8 bits), two characters would use two bytes (16 bits).

Put another way, a bit is either an 'on' or an 'off' which is processed by a computer processor, we represent 'on' as '1' and 'off' as '0'. 8 bits are known as a byte, and it is bytes which are used to pass our information in it's basic form - characters.

An alphanumeric character (e.g. a letter or number such as 'A', 'B' or '7') is stored as 1 byte. For example, to store the letter 'R' uses 1 byte, which is stored by the computer as 8 bits, '01010010'.

A document containing 100 characters would use 100 bytes (800 bits) - assuming the file didn't have any overhead (additional data about the file which forms part of the file). Note, many non-alphanumeric characters such as symbols and foreign language characters use multiple bytes.

Full sizes....

KB: Kilobyte 1,024 Bytes

MB: Megabyte 1,048,576 Bytes

GB: Gigabyte 1,073,741,824 Bytes | One billion Bytes

TB: Terrabyte 1024 GB, 1,048,576 MB,
8,388,608 KB, 1,099,511,627,776 Bytes and 8,796,093,022,208 bits.

PB: Pettabyte 1024 TB, 1,048,576 GB, 1,073,741,824 MB, 1,099,511,627,776 KB, 1,125,899,906,842,624 Bytes and 9,007,199,254,740,992 bits.

EB :Exabyte 1024 PB, 1,048,576 TB, 1,073,741,824 GB, 1,099,511,627,776 MB, 1,125,899,906,842,624 KB, 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 Bytes and 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 bits.

ZB: Zettabyte 1024 EB, 1,048,576 PB, 1,073,741,824 TB, 1,099,511,627,776 GB, 1,125,899,906,842,624 MB, 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 KB, 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 Bytes and 9,444,732,965,739,290,427,392 bits

YB: Yottabyte 1024 ZB, 1,048,576 EB, 1,073,741,824 PB, 1,099,511,627,776 TB, 1,125,899,906,842,624 GB, 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 MB, 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 KB 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 Bytes and 9,671,406,556,917,033,397,649,408 bits