Difference Between Megabyte Gigabyte and Terabyte

Megabyte vs Gigabyte vs Terabyte
 

Difference between megabyte gigabyte and terabyte is a basic computer knowledge. Bit is the most basic and smallest storage unit in computing. A bit can store only whether it is 1 or 0. 8 bits make up one byte. 1024 bytes are called a kilobyte. Bytes and kilobytes are too small that today they are not enough for measuring storage capacities. Then 1024 kilobytes make up one megabyte. 1024 megabytes make up one gigabyte, and 1024 gigabytes make up one terabyte. A JPG  file used to store a photo would be a few megabytes. The capacity of a DVD is a couple of gigabytes and an HD video can have a file size of few gigabytes. A terabyte is a quite large storage as per today where a generally a hard disk currently at the market have capacities such as 1 terabytes and 2 terabytes.

What is Megabyte?

A megabyte means 1024 kilobytes. That is 1024 x 1024 bytes. A megabyte is stated using the letters MB. For example, 4 megabytes is written as 4 MB. In the present , a megabyte, though it has a huge number of bytes, is not a much large capacity. 1. 4” floppy disks, which could store a couple of documents, had a size of 1. 44 MB. Today, even a JPG image taken from a digit al camera is larger than a megabyte. For example, a JPG image taken from a 12 megapixel digital camera is about 4 MB. A mp3 file that stores a song also is about 3-10 MB. A YouTube mp4 video of 5 minutes of 1080p  quality is about 100 MB. A compact disk has a capacity of 700MB. So today megabytes are the most widely used unit to state the size of generally used files.

What is Gigabyte?

1024 megabytes make up a gigabyte. A gigabyte is represented by GB. For example, 1 gigab yte is shown as 1GB. The size of a single layer DVD is 4.5GB. A gigabyte can store a large number of files like photos and music but, when coming to high definition videos, they take a couple of gigabytes. For example, a high definition blue ray quality film would take up several gigabytes. Also, most setup packages of different software and operating systems, such as Windows, Office, Photoshop, and Corel Video suits takes up several GB. For example, the Windows 8.1 setup image is close to 4 GB. Also, when measuring RAM capacity in the current market, gigabyte is the used unit. In the present, 4GB and 8GB are themost available RAM modules. Even for measuring hard disk capacities, gigabytes are used, but now it is becoming insufficient.

What is Terabyte?

A terabyte consists of 1024 gigabytes. A terabyte is denoted by TB. For example, 1 terabyte is shown as 1 TB. As per today, terabyte is a huge amount of capacity. A general file never has capacities where a terabyte has to be used as the unit. Today, terabyte is most used for measuring hard disk capacities. Today hard disks of sizes such as 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB are available.

What is the difference between Megabyte Gigabyte and Terabyte?

• A Gigabyte means 1024 megabytes. A terabyte is 1024 gigabytes. The smallest out of the three is megabyte. The largest out of the three is the terabyte.

• A megabyte has 1024 x 1024 bytes. A gigabyte has 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes. A terabyte has 1024 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes.

• Today, megabytes are used for measuring general file sizes such as music and photos. Gigabytes are used for large files such as HD video films. Generaluse files that take up to terabytes are almost not there.

• A 1.4” diskette had a capacity of 1.44 MB. A DVD has a capacity of 4.5 GB. Hard disks take capacities like 1 TB.

• The cache of CPUs are currently measured in megabytes. The RAM module sizes are measured in gigabytes. Hard disk sizes are measured in terabytes. But with time these would change.

Summary:

Megabyte vs Gigabyte vs Terabyte

Bytes are the units used for measuring storage capacity. 1024 kilobytes make up one megabyte. 1024 megabytes makes up one gigabyte. 1024 gigabytes make up one terabyte. Megabytes are mostly used for measuring size of files such as photos and songs. Gigabytes are a bit large capacity where the size of RAMs, size of DVDs takes couple of gigabytes. Files such as HD video films can take several gigabytes. Terabyte is a very huge capacity where it is used for stating capacity of hard disks.

 

Images Courtesy:

1. Floppy disks via Wikicommons (Public Domain)
2. Hard disk by Evan-Amos (CC BY-SA 3.0)