Bits & Bytes

Bits...

Computers operate using Binary Code, which is a Base 2 numbering system where any binary digit, or "bit", can only be a 1 or 0. We are more familiar with our decimal, Base 10, numbering system where any digit can be 0 - 9.

Decimal
example: 56,357
10,000s	1,000s	100s	10s	1s	=
5	6	3	5	7	56,357

(5 x 10,000) + (6 x 1,000) + (3 x 100) + (5 x 10) + (7 x1) = 56,357

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Binary
example: 10010011
128s	64s	32s	16s	8s	4s	2s	1s	=
1	0	0	1	0	0	1	1	147

128 + 0 + 0 + 16 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 147

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...and Bytes

1 Byte = 8 Bits

Unit	Power of 2	Bytes
1 Kilobyte (KB)	210	1,024
1 Megabyte (MB)	220	1,048,576
1 Gigabyte (GB)	230	1,073,741,824
1 Terabyte (TB)	240	1,099,511,627,776
1 Petabyte (PB)	250	1,125,899,906,842,624
1 Exabyte (EB)	260	1,152,921,504,606,846,976
1 Zettabyte (ZB)	270	1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424
1 Yottabyte (YB)	280	1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176

Note: These units of measure are used for both memory sizes (RAM), and Hard Drive storage.