Orders of magnitude (data)

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An order of magnitude is usually a factor of ten. Thus, four orders of magnitude is a factor of 10,000 or 104.

This article presents a list of multiples, sorted by orders of magnitude, for units of information measured in bits and bytes.

The byte is a common unit of measurement of information (kilobyte, kibibyte, megabyte, mebibyte, gigabyte, gibibyte, terabyte, tebibyte, etc.). For the purpose of this article, a byte is a group of 8 bits (octet), a nibble is a group of four bits. Historically, neither assumption has always been true.

The decimal SI prefixes kilo , mega , giga , tera , etc., are powers of 103 = 1000. The binary prefixes kibi , mebi , gibi , tebi , etc. respectively refer to the corresponding power of 210 = 1024.

In casual usage, when 1024 is a close enough approximation of 1000, some of the decimal prefixes have been used in relation to computer memories to mean the binary power, but increasingly from 1998, standards bodies have chosen to limit the resultant confusion by disallowing when software displays a binary quantity with a decimal prefix. [1] [2] Microsoft operating systems still report file and free spaces on a storage device in this casual sense.

Orders of magnitude (data)
Binary
[bits]		 Decimal Item
FactorTermFactorTerm
2−110−10.415 bits (log2 4/3) – amount of information needed to eliminate one option out of four.
0.6–1.3 bits – approximate information per letter of English text. [3]
20 bit 100bit1 bit – 0 or 1, false or true, Low or High (a.k.a. unibit)
1.442695 bits (log2 e) – approximate size of a nat (a unit of information based on natural logarithms)
1.5849625 bits (log2 3) – approximate size of a trit (a base-3 digit)
212 bits – a crumb (a.k.a. dibit) enough to uniquely identify one base pair of DNA
3 bits – a triad(e), (a.k.a. tribit) the size of an octal digit
22 nibble 4 bits – (a.k.a. tetrad(e), nibble, quadbit, semioctet, or halfbyte) the size of a hexadecimal digit; decimal digits in binary-coded decimal form
5 bits – the size of code points in the Baudot code, used in telex communication (a.k.a. pentad)
6 bits – the size of code points in Univac Fieldata, in IBM "BCD" format, and in Braille. Enough to uniquely identify one codon of genetic code. The size of code points in Base64; thus, often the entropy per character in a randomly-generated password.
7 bits – the size of code points in the ASCII character set

– minimum length to store 2 decimal digits

23 byte (B)8 bits – (a.k.a. octet or octad(e)) on many computer architectures.

– equivalent to 1 "word" on 8-bit computers (Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, etc.).
– the "word size" for 8-bit console systems including: Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System

101decabit10 bits

– minimum bit length to store a single byte with error-correcting computer memory
– minimum frame length to transmit a single byte with asynchronous serial protocols

12 bits – wordlength of the PDP-8 of Digital Equipment Corporation (built from 1965 to 1990)
2416 bits

– the Basic Multilingual Plane of Unicode, containing character codings for almost all modern languages, and a large number of symbols
– the basic unit in UTF-16; the full Universal Character Set (Unicode) can be encoded in one or two of these
– commonly used in many programming languages, the size of an integer capable of holding 65,536 different values
– equivalent to 1 "word" on 16-bit computers (IBM PC, Commodore Amiga)
– the "word size" for 16-bit console systems including: Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Mattel Intellivision

2532 bits (4 bytes)

– size of an integer capable of holding 4,294,967,296 different values
– size of an IEEE 754 single-precision floating point number
– size of addresses in IPv4, the current Internet Protocol
– equivalent to 1 "word" on 32-bit processors, including those for the Apple Macintosh, Pentium-based PC, PlayStation, GameCube, Xbox, Wii

36 bits – size of word on Univac 1100-series computers and Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-10
56 bits (7 bytes) – cipher strength of the DES encryption standard
2664 bits (8 bytes)

– size of an integer capable of holding 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 different values
– size of an IEEE 754 double-precision floating point number
– equivalent to 1 "word" on 64-bit computers (Power, PA-RISC, Alpha, Itanium, SPARC, x86-64 PCs and Macintoshes).
– the "word size" for 64-bit console systems including: Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

80 bits (10 bytes) – size of an extended precision floating point number, for intermediate calculations that can be performed in floating point units of most processors of the x86 family.
102hectobit100 bits
27128 bits (16 bytes)

– size of addresses in IPv6, the successor protocol of IPv4
– minimum cipher strength of the Rijndael and AES encryption standards, and of the widely used MD5 cryptographic message digest algorithm
– size of an SSE vector register, included as part of the x86-64 standard

160 bits (20 bytes) – maximum key length of the SHA-1, standard Tiger (hash function), and Tiger2 cryptographic message digest algorithms
28256 bits (32 bytes)

– minimum key length for the recommended strong cryptographic message digests as of 2004
– size of an AVX2 vector register, present on newer x86-64 CPUs

29512 bits (64 bytes)

– maximum key length for the standard strong cryptographic message digests in 2004
– size of an AVX-512 vector register, present on some x86-64 CPUs

103 kilobit
(kbit)		1,000 bits (125 bytes)
210 kibibit
(Kibit)		1,024 bits (128 bytes) - RAM capacity of the Atari 2600
1,288 bits (161 bytes) – approximate maximum capacity of a standard magnetic stripe card
2112,048 bits (256 bytes) – RAM capacity of the stock Altair 8800
2124,096 bits (512 bytes)

– typical sector size, and minimum space allocation unit on computer storage volumes, with most file systems
– approximate amount of information on a sheet of single-spaced typewritten paper (without formatting)

4,704 bits (588 bytes) – uncompressed single-channel frame length in standard MPEG audio (75 frames per second and per channel), with medium quality 8-bit sampling at 44,100  Hz (or 16-bit sampling at 22,050 Hz)
kilobyte
(kB, KB)		8,000 bits (1,000 bytes)
213 kibibyte
(KiB)		8,192 bits (1,024 bytes) – RAM capacity of a ZX81 and a ZX80.
9,408 bits (1,176 bytes) – uncompressed single-channel frame length in standard MPEG audio (75 frames per second and per channel), with standard 16-bit sampling at 44,100 Hz
10415,360 bits – one screen of data displayed on an 8-bit monochrome text console (80x24)
21416,384 bits (2 kibibytes) – one page of typed text, [4] RAM capacity of Nintendo Entertainment System
21532,768 bits (4 kibibytes)
21665,536 bits (8 kibibytes)
105100,000 bits
217131,072 bits (16 kibibytes) – RAM capacity of the smallest ZX Spectrum.
218262,144 bits (32 kibibytes) - RAM capacity of Matra Alice 90
393,216 bits (48 kibibytes) - RAM capacity of 48K ZX Spectrum
506 kilobits – approximate size of this article as of 20 May 2019
219524,288 bits (64 kibibytes) – RAM capacity of popular 8-bit computers like the C-64, Amstrad CPC etc.
106 megabit
(Mbit)		1,000,000 bits
220 mebibit
(Mibit)		1,048,576 bits (128 kibibytes) – RAM capacity of popular 8-bit computers like the C-128, Amstrad CPC etc. Or a 1024 x 768 pixel JPEG image.
1,978,560 bits – a one-page, standard-resolution black-and-white fax (1728 × 1145 pixels)
2212,097,152 bits (256 kibibytes)
4,147,200 bits – one frame of uncompressed NTSC DVD video (720 × 480 × 12 bpp Y'CbCr)
2224,194,304 bits (512 kibibytes)
4,976,640 bits – one frame of uncompressed PAL DVD video (720 × 576 × 12 bpp Y'CbCr)
5,000,000 bits – Typical English book volume in plain text format of 500 pages × 2000 characters per page and 5-bits per character.
5,242,880 bits (640 kibibytes) – the maximum addressable memory of the original IBM PC architecture
megabyte
(MB)		8,000,000 bits (1,000 kilobytes) – the preferred definition of megabyte
8,343,400 bits – one "typical" sized photograph with reasonably good quality (1024 × 768 pixels).
223 mebibyte
(MiB)		8,388,608 bits (1,024 kibibytes), one of a few traditional meanings of megabyte
10711,520,000 bits – capacity of a lower-resolution computer monitor (as of 2006), 800 × 600 pixels, 24 bpp
11,796,480 bits – capacity of a 3.5 in floppy disk, colloquially known as 1.44 megabyte but actually 1.44 × 1000 × 1024 bytes
224
16,777,216 bits (2 mebibytes)
25,000,000 bits – amount of data in a typical color slide
30,000,000 bits – The first commercial harddisk IBM 350 in 1956 could store 3.75 MiB for a cost of US$50,000, [5] equivalent to $560,343in 2023.
22533,554,432 bits (4 mebibytes) – RAM capacity of stock Nintendo 64 and average size of a music track in MP3 format.
41,943,040 bits (5 mebibytes) – approximate size of the Complete Works of Shakespeare [4]
80,000,000 bits – In 1985 a 10 MB harddisk cost US$710, [5] equivalent to $2,011in 2023.
98,304,000 bits – capacity of a high-resolution computer monitor as of 2011, 2560 × 1600 pixels,24 bpp
50 – 100 megabits – amount of information in a typical phone book
22610867,108,864 bit (8 mebibytes)
227134,217,728 bits (16 mebibytes)
150 megabits – amount of data in a large foldout map
228268,435,456 bits (32 mebibytes)
144,000,000 bits: In 1980 an 18 MB hard disk cost US$4,199, [5] equivalent to $15,527in 2023.
423,360,000 bits: a five-minute audio recording, in CDDA quality
229536,870,912 bits (64 mebibytes)
109 gigabit
(Gbit)		1,000,000,000 bits
230 gibibit
(Gibit)		1,073,741,824 bits (128 mebibytes)
2312,147,483,648 bits (256 mebibytes)
2324,294,967,296 bits (512 mebibytes)
5.45×109 bits (650 mebibytes) – capacity of a regular compact disc (CD)
5.89×109 bits (702 mebibytes) – capacity of a large regular compact disc
6.4×109 bits – capacity of the human genome (assuming 2 bits for each base pair)
6,710,886,400 bits – average size of a movie in Divx format in 2002. [6]
gigabyte
(GB)		8,000,000,000 bits (1,000 megabytes) – In 1995 a 1 GB harddisk cost US$849, [5] equivalent to $1,698in 2023.
233 gibibyte
(GiB)		8,589,934,592 bits (1,024 mebibytes) – The maximum disk capacity using the 21-bit LBA SCSI standard introduced in 1979.
101010,000,000,000 bits
23417,179,869,184 bits (2 gibibytes). The storage limit of IDE standard for harddisks in 1986, also the volume size limit for the FAT16B file system (with 32 KiB clusters) released in 1987 as well as the maximum file size (2 GiB-1) in DOS operating systems prior to the introduction of large file support in DOS 7.10 (1997).
23534,359,738,368 bits (4 gibibytes) – maximum addressable memory for the Motorola 68020 (1984) and Intel 80386 (1985), also the volume size limit for the FAT16B file system (with 64 KiB clusters) as well as the maximum file size (4 GiB-1) in MS-DOS 7.1-8.0.
3.76×1010 bits (4.7 gigabytes) – capacity of a single-layer, single-sided DVD
23668,719,476,736 bits (8 gibibytes)
79,215,880,888 bits – 9.2 GiB size of Wikipedia article text compressed with bzip2 on 2013-06-05
1011100,000,000,000 bits
237137,438,953,472 bits (16 gibibytes).
1.46×1011 bits (17 gigabytes) – capacity of a double-sided, dual-layered DVD
2.15×1011 bits (25 gigabytes) – capacity of a single-sided, single-layered 12-cm Blu-ray
238274,877,906,944 bits (32 gibibytes)
239549,755,813,888 bits (64 gibibytes)
1012 terabit
(Tbit)		1,000,000,000,000 bits
240 tebibit
(Tibit)		1,099,511,627,776 bits (128 gibibytes) – estimated capacity of the Polychaos dubium genome, the largest known genome. The storage limit for ATA-1 compliant disks introduced in 1994.
1.6×1012 bits (200 gigabytes) – capacity of a hard disk that would be considered average as of 2008. In 2005 a 200 GB harddisk cost US$100, [5] equivalent to $156in 2023. As of April 2015, this is the maximum capacity of a fingernail-sized microSD card.
2412,199,023,255,552 bits (256 gibibytes) – As of 2017, this is the maximum capacity of a fingernail-sized microSD card
2424,398,046,511,104 bits (512 gibibytes)
terabyte
(TB)		8,000,000,000,000 bits (1,000 gigabytes) – In 2010 a 1 TB hard disk cost US$80, [5] equivalent to $112in 2023.
243 tebibyte
(TiB)		8,796,093,022,208 bits (1,024 gibibytes)
101310,000,000,000,000 bits (1.25 terabytes) – capacity of a human being's functional memory, according to Raymond Kurzweil in The Singularity Is Near, p. 126
16,435,678,019,584 bits (1.9 terabytes) – Size of all multimedia files used in the English Wikipedia in May 2012
24417,592,186,044,416 bits (2 tebibytes) – Maximum size of MBR partitions used in PCs introduced in 1983, also the maximum disk capacity using the 32-bit LBA SCSI introduced in 1987
24535,184,372,088,832 bits (4 tebibytes)
24670,368,744,177,664 bits (8 tebibytes)
1014100,000,000,000,000 bits
247140,737,488,355,328 bits (16 tebibytes). NTFS volume capacity in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or earlier implementation. [7]
1.5×1014 bits (18.75 terabytes)
248281,474,976,710,656 bits (32 tebibytes)
(approximately) 4×1014 bits – as of 2022, data of π to the largest number of decimal digits ever calculated (1×1014).
249562,949,953,421,312 bits (64 tebibytes)
1015 petabit
(Pbit)		1,000,000,000,000,000 bits
250 pebibit
(Pibit)		1,125,899,906,842,624 bits (128 tebibytes)
2512,251,799,813,685,248 bits (256 tebibytes)
2524,503,599,627,370,496 bits (512 tebibytes)
petabyte
(PB)		8,000,000,000,000,000 bits (1,000 terabytes)
253 pebibyte
(PiB)		9,007,199,254,740,992 bits (1,024 tebibytes)
101610,000,000,000,000,000 bits
25418,014,398,509,481,984 bits (2 pebibytes)
25536,028,797,018,963,968 bits (4 pebibytes) – theoretical maximum of addressable physical memory in the AMD64 architecture [ citation needed ]
4.5×1016 bits (5.625 petabytes) – estimated hard drive space in Google's server farm as of 2004[ citation needed ]
25672,057,594,037,927,936 bits (8 pebibytes)
10 petabytes (1016 bytes) – estimated approximate size of the Library of Congress's collection, including non-book materials, as of 2005. [8] Size of the Internet Archive topped 10 PB in October 2013 [9]
1017100,000,000,000,000,000 bits
257144,115,188,075,855,872 bits (16 pebibytes)
2×1017 bits (25 petabytes) – Storage space of Megaupload file-hosting service at the time it was shut down in 2012 [10]
258288,230,376,151,711,744 bits (32 pebibytes)
259576,460,752,303,423,488 bits (64 pebibytes)
8 ×1017, the storage capacity of the fictional Star Trek character Data
1018 exabit
(Ebit)		1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
260 exbibit
(Eibit)		1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bits (128 pebibytes). The storage limit using the 48-bit LBA ATA-6 standard introduced in 2002.
1.6×1018 bits (200 petabytes) – total amount of printed material in the world [ citation needed ]
2×1018 bits (250 petabytes) – storage space at Facebook data warehouse as of June 2013, [11] growing at a rate of 15 PB/month. [12]
2612,305,843,009,213,693,952 bits (256 pebibytes)
2.4×1018 bits (300 petabytes) – storage space at Facebook data warehouse as of April 2014, growing at a rate of 0.6 PB/day. [13]
2624,611,686,018,427,387,904 bits (512 pebibytes)
exabyte
(EB)		8,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits (1,000 petabytes)
263 exbibyte
(EiB)		9,223,372,036,854,775,808 bits (1,024 pebibytes)
101910,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
26418,446,744,073,709,551,616 bits (2 exbibytes).
26536,893,488,147,419,103,232 bits (4 exbibytes)
50,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits (50 exabit)
26673,786,976,294,838,206,464 bits (8 exbibytes)
1020100,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
1.2×1020 bits (15 exabytes) – estimated storage space at Google data warehouse as of 2013 [14]
267147,573,952,589,676,412,928 bits (16 exbibytes) – maximum addressable memory using 64-bit addresses without segmentation. [15] Maximum file size for ZFS filesystem.
268295,147,905,179,352,825,856 bits (32 exbibytes)
3.5 × 1020 bits – increase in information capacity when 1 joule of energy is added to a heat-bath at 300 K(27 °C) [16]
269590,295,810,358,705,651,712 bits (64 exbibytes)
1021 zettabit
(Zbit)		1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
270 zebibit
(Zibit)		1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bits (128 exbibytes)
2712,361,183,241,434,822,606,848 bits (256 exbibytes)
3.4×1021 bits (0.36 zettabytes) – amount of information that can be stored in 1 gram of DNA [17]
4.7×1021 bits (0.50 zettabytes) – amount of digitally stored information in the world as of May 2009 [18]
4.8×1021 bits (0.61 zettabytes) – total hard drive capacity shipped in 2016 [19]
2724,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 bits (512 exbibytes)
zettabyte
(ZB)		8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits (1,000 exabytes)
273 zebibyte
(ZiB)		9,444,732,965,739,290,427,392 bits (1,024 exbibytes)
102210,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
276276 bits – Maximum volume and file size in the Unix File System (UFS) and maximum disk capacity using the 64-bit LBA SCSI standard introduced in 2000 using 512-byte blocks. [20]
10231.0×1023 bits – increase in information capacity when 1 joule of energy is added to a heat-bath at 1 K (−272.15 °C) [21]
2776.0×1023 bits – information content of 1 mole (12.01 g) of graphite at 25 °C; equivalent to an average of 0.996 bits per atom. [22]
1024 yottabit
(Ybit)		1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
7.3×1024 bits – information content of 1 mole (18.02 g) of liquid water at 25 °C; equivalent to an average of 12.14 bits per molecule. [23]
280 yobibit
(Yibit)		1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bits (128 zebibytes)
yottabyte
(YB)		8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits (1,000 zettabytes)
283 yobibyte
(YiB)		9,671,406,556,917,033,397,649,408 bits (1,024 zebibytes)
10251.1×1025 bits – entropy increase of 1 mole(18.02 g) of water, on vaporizing at 100 °C at standard pressure; equivalent to an average of 18.90 bits per molecule. [24]
1.5×1025 bits – information content of 1 mole (20.18 g) of neon gas at 25 °C and 1 atm; equivalent to an average of 25.39 bits per atom. [25]
2861026
2891027 ronnabit
(Rbit)
293 ronnabyte
(RB)
21001030 quettabit
(Qbit)
2102 quettabyte
(QB)
Beyond standardized SI / IEC (binary) prefixes
2127N/A1038N/A2127 bits, 2124 bytes – IBM Eagle
213110392131 bits, 2128 bytes – theoretical maximum volume size of the ZFS filesystem. [26] [27] [28]
21501042~ 1042 bits – the number of bits required to perfectly recreate the natural matter of the average-sized U.S. adult male human brain down to the quantum level on a computer is about 2.6×1042 bits of information (see Bekenstein bound for the basis for this calculation).
21931058~ 1058 bits – thermodynamic entropy of the sun [29] (about 30 bits per proton, plus 10 bits per electron).
22301069~ 1069 bits – thermodynamic entropy of the Milky Way Galaxy (counting only the stars, not the black holes within the galaxy) [ citation needed ]
225510771.5×1077 bits – information content of a one-solar-mass black hole. [30]
23051090The information capacity of the observable universe, according to Seth Lloyd (not including gravitation) [31]

Note: this page mixes between two kinds of entropies:

  1. Entropy (information theory), such as the amount of information that can be stored in DNA
  2. Entropy (thermodynamics), such as entropy increase of 1 mole of water

These two definitions are not entirely equivalent, see Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory.

For comparison, the Avogadro constant is 6.02214076×1023 entities per mole, based upon the number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12 isotope.

In 2012, some hard disks used ~984,573 atoms to store each bit. In January 2012, IBM researchers announced they compressed 1 bit in 12 atoms using antiferromagnetism and a scanning tunneling microscope with iron and copper atoms. This could mean a practical jump from a 1 TB disk to a 100 TB disk. [5] [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communication. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented as either "1" or "0", but other representations such as true/false, yes/no, on/off, or +/− are also widely used.

The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. 1 byte (B) = 8 bits (bit). Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. To disambiguate arbitrarily sized bytes from the common 8-bit definition, network protocol documents such as the Internet Protocol refer to an 8-bit byte as an octet. Those bits in an octet are usually counted with numbering from 0 to 7 or 7 to 0 depending on the bit endianness.

A binary prefix is a unit prefix that indicates a multiple of a unit of measurement by an integer power of two. The most commonly used binary prefixes are kibi (symbol Ki, meaning 210 = 1024), mebi (Mi, 220 = 1048576), and gibi (Gi, 230 = 1073741824). They are most often used in information technology as multipliers of bit and byte, when expressing the capacity of storage devices or the size of computer files.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gigabyte</span> Unit of digital information

The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giga-</span> Metric prefix

Giga- ( or ) is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of a short-scale billion or long-scale milliard (109 or 1,000,000,000). It has the symbol G.

In computer science, an integer is a datum of integral data type, a data type that represents some range of mathematical integers. Integral data types may be of different sizes and may or may not be allowed to contain negative values. Integers are commonly represented in a computer as a group of binary digits (bits). The size of the grouping varies so the set of integer sizes available varies between different types of computers. Computer hardware nearly always provides a way to represent a processor register or memory address as an integer.

The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information.

The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix mega is a multiplier of 1000000 (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes of information. This definition has been incorporated into the International System of Quantities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arithmetic coding</span> Form of entropy encoding used in data compression

Arithmetic coding (AC) is a form of entropy encoding used in lossless data compression. Normally, a string of characters is represented using a fixed number of bits per character, as in the ASCII code. When a string is converted to arithmetic encoding, frequently used characters will be stored with fewer bits and not-so-frequently occurring characters will be stored with more bits, resulting in fewer bits used in total. Arithmetic coding differs from other forms of entropy encoding, such as Huffman coding, in that rather than separating the input into component symbols and replacing each with a code, arithmetic coding encodes the entire message into a single number, an arbitrary-precision fraction q, where 0.0 ≤ q < 1.0. It represents the current information as a range, defined by two numbers. A recent family of entropy coders called asymmetric numeral systems allows for faster implementations thanks to directly operating on a single natural number representing the current information.

Unary coding, or the unary numeral system and also sometimes called thermometer code, is an entropy encoding that represents a natural number, n, with a code of length n + 1, usually n ones followed by a zero or with n − 1 ones followed by a zero. For example 5 is represented as 111110 or 11110. Some representations use n or n − 1 zeros followed by a one. The ones and zeros are interchangeable without loss of generality. Unary coding is both a prefix-free code and a self-synchronizing code.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Power of two</span> Two raised to an integer power

A power of two is a number of the form 2n where n is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number two as the base and integer n as the exponent.

In computing, a word is the natural unit of data used by a particular processor design. A word is a fixed-sized datum handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor. The number of bits or digits in a word is an important characteristic of any specific processor design or computer architecture.

A unit prefix is a specifier or mnemonic that is prepended to units of measurement to indicate multiples or fractions of the units. Units of various sizes are commonly formed by the use of such prefixes. The prefixes of the metric system, such as kilo and milli, represent multiplication by positive or negative powers of ten. In information technology it is common to use binary prefixes, which are based on powers of two. Historically, many prefixes have been used or proposed by various sources, but only a narrow set has been recognised by standards organisations.

File size is a measure of how much data a computer file contains or, alternately, how much storage it consumes. Typically, file size is expressed in units of measurement based on the byte. By convention, file size units use either a metric prefix or a binary prefix.

IEEE 1541-2002 is a standard issued in 2002 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) concerning the use of prefixes for binary multiples of units of measurement related to digital electronics and computing. IEEE 1541-2021 revises and supersedes IEEE 1541–2002, which is 'inactive'.

ISO/IEC 80000, Quantities and units, is an international standard describing the International System of Quantities (ISQ). It was developed and promulgated jointly by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). It serves as a style guide for using physical quantities and units of measurement, formulas involving them, and their corresponding units, in scientific and educational documents for worldwide use. The ISO/IEC 80000 family of standards was completed with the publication of the first edition of Part 1 in November 2009.

In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multiples of bits per second (bit/s) and bytes per second (B/s). For example, the data rates of modern residential high-speed Internet connections are commonly expressed in megabits per second (Mbit/s).

This timeline of binary prefixes lists events in the history of the evolution, development, and use of units of measure that are germane to the definition of the binary prefixes by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 1998, used primarily with units of information such as the bit and the byte.

In digital computing and telecommunications, a unit of information is the capacity of some standard data storage system or communication channel, used to measure the capacities of other systems and channels. In information theory, units of information are also used to measure information contained in messages and the entropy of random variables.

An order of magnitude is generally a factor of ten. A quantity growing by four orders of magnitude implies it has grown by a factor of 10000 or 104. However, because computers are binary, orders of magnitude are sometimes given as powers of two.

References

  1. ↑ "Definitions of the SI units: The binary prefixes". physics.nist.gov. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  2. ↑ "quantifiers". www.catb.org. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  3. ↑ Mark Nelson (24 August 2006). "The Hutter Prize" . Retrieved 27 November 2008.
  4. 1 2 "A special report on managing information: All too much". The Economist. 25 February 2010. Retrieved 4 March 2010.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Cost of Hard Drive Space". 11 May 2013. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  6. ↑ "How much does DivX shrink a file?". 18 April 2002. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
  7. ↑ Microsoft TechNet (28 March 2003). "How NTFS Works". Windows Server 2003 Technical Reference. Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  8. ↑ Hickey, Thom (OCLC Chief Scientist) (21 June 2005). "Entire Library of Congress". Outgoing. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
  9. ↑ The Internet Archive Has Now Saved a Whopping 10,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes of Data, retrieved October 2nd 2013
  10. ↑ 25 petabyte on Megaupload. Archived 1 August 2012 at archive.today Retrieved 16 February 2012
  11. ↑ "Facebook unveils Presto engine for querying 250 PB data warehouse". 7 June 2013. Archived from the original on 13 April 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  12. ↑ "100 Petabytes of Cloud Data". 18 March 2014.
  13. ↑ "Scaling the Facebook data warehouse to 300 PB". 10 April 2014.
  14. ↑ Estimated storage space at Google
  15. ↑ "A brief history of virtual storage and 64-bit addressability" . Retrieved 17 February 2007.
  16. ↑ [ citation needed ] J K−1
  17. ↑ http://www.tmrfindia.org/ijcsa/V2I29.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  18. ↑ "Internet data heads for 500bn gigabytes", The Guardian , 18 May 2009. Retrieved on 23 April 2010.
  19. ↑ 424 Million HDDs Shipped in 2016 – Trendfocus
  20. ↑ "Working Draft T10, American National Standard Project 1417-D, Revision 4, 28 July 2001" (PDF). o3one.org. 8 January 2002. p. 72. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  21. ↑ 1 J K−1. Equivalent to 1/( k ln 2) bits, where k is the Boltzmann constant
  22. ↑ Equivalent to 5.74 J K−1. Standard molar entropy of graphite.
  23. ↑ Equivalent to 69.95 J K−1. Standard molar entropy of water.
  24. ↑ Equivalent to 108.9 J K−1
  25. ↑ Equivalent to 146.33 J K−1. Standard molar entropy of neon. An experimental value, see Archived 27 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine for a theoretical calculation.
  26. ↑ "What Is ZFS? - Oracle Solaris ZFS Administration Guide". docs.oracle.com. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
  27. ↑ Lloyd, Seth (August 2000). "Ultimate physical limits to computation". Nature. 406 (6799): 1047–1054. arXiv: quant-ph/9908043 . Bibcode:2000Natur.406.1047L. doi:10.1038/35023282. ISSN   0028-0836. PMID   10984064. S2CID   75923.
  28. ↑ "To Boil the Oceans". Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. 10 February 2009. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
  29. ↑ Given as 1042 erg K−1 in Bekenstein (1973), Black Holes and Entropy [ permanent dead link ], Physical Review D 7 2338
  30. ↑ Entropy = in nats, with for a Schwarzschild black hole. 1 nat = 1/ln(2) bits. See Jacob D. Bekenstein (2008), Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, Scholarpedia .
  31. ↑ Lloyd, Seth (24 May 2002). "Computational Capacity of the Universe" (PDF). Physical Review Letters. 88 (23): 237901. arXiv: quant-ph/0110141 . Bibcode:2002PhRvL..88w7901L. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.237901. PMID   12059399. S2CID   6341263. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 November 2017.
  32. ↑ "IBM Smashes Moore's Law, Cuts Bit Size to 12 Atoms". 12 January 2012. Archived from the original on 29 September 2013. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
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