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Definitions: Hide 1definitions 2examples of Use 3see Also 4references 5external Links

The megabyte is a unit of digital information that can have multiple definitions. It is commonly defined as either 1 million bytes or 1,048,576 bytes. The definition of 1 million bytes is recommended by standards bodies and used for storage media like hard drives. The definition of 1,048,576 bytes is used by Microsoft Windows for computer memory and is equivalent to the binary prefix mebibyte. The document provides examples of how megabytes are used to measure file sizes and data capacities.

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20 views3 pages

Definitions: Hide 1definitions 2examples of Use 3see Also 4references 5external Links

The megabyte is a unit of digital information that can have multiple definitions. It is commonly defined as either 1 million bytes or 1,048,576 bytes. The definition of 1 million bytes is recommended by standards bodies and used for storage media like hard drives. The definition of 1,048,576 bytes is used by Microsoft Windows for computer memory and is equivalent to the binary prefix mebibyte. The document provides examples of how megabytes are used to measure file sizes and data capacities.

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

Its recommended unit symbol


is MB, but sometimes MByte is used. The unit prefix mega is a multiplier of 1000000 (106) in
the International System of Units (SI).[1] Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes of information.
This definition has been incorporated into the International System of Quantities.
However, in the computer and information technology fields, several other definitions are used that
arose for historical reasons of convenience. A common usage has been to designate one megabyte
as 1048576bytes(220 B), a measurement that conveniently expresses the binary multiples inherent in
digital computer memory architectures. However, most standards bodies have deprecated this
usage in favor of a set of binary prefixes,[2] in which this measurement is designated by the
unit mebibyte (MiB). Less common is a measurement that used the megabyte to mean 10001024
(1024000) bytes.[2]
Contents
[hide]
1Definitions
2Examples of use
3See also
4References
5External links

Definitions[edit]
The megabyte is commonly used to measure either 10002 bytes or 10242 bytes. The interpretation of
using base 1024 originated as a compromise technical jargon for the byte multiples that needed to
be expressed by the powers of 2 but lacked a convenient name. As 1024 (210) approximates 1000
(103), roughly corresponding to the SI prefix kilo-, it began to be used for binary multiples as well. In
1998 the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) proposed standards for binary
prefixes requiring the use of megabyte to strictly denote 10002 bytes and mebibyte to denote
10242 bytes. By the end of 2009, the IEC Standard had been adopted by
the IEEE, EU, ISO and NIST. Nevertheless, the term megabyte continues to be widely used with
different meanings:
Base 10
1 MB = 1000000 bytes (= 10002 B = 106 B) is the definition recommended by the
International System of Units (SI) and the International Electrotechnical
Commission IEC.[2] This definition is used in networking contexts and most storage media,
particularly hard drives, flash-based storage,[3] and DVDs, and is also consistent with the
other uses of the SI prefix in computing, such as CPU clock speeds or measures of
performance. The Mac OS X 10.6 file manager is a notable example of this usage in
software. Since Snow Leopard, file sizes are reported in decimal units.[4]

Base 2
Main article: mebibyte
1 MB = 1048576 bytes (= 10242 B = 220 B) is the definition used by Microsoft Windows in
reference to computer memory, such as RAM. This definition is synonymous with the
unambiguous binary prefix mebibyte.
Mixed
1 MB = 1024000 bytes (= 10001024) B is the definition used to describe the formatted
capacity of the 1.44 MB 3.5inch HD floppy disk, which actually has a capacity
of 1474560bytes.
Semiconductor memory doubles in size for each address lane added to an integrated
circuit package, which favors counts that are powers of two. The capacity of a disk drive
is the product of the sector size, number of sectors per track, number of tracks per side,
and the number of disk platters in the drive. Changes in any of these factors would not
usually double the size. Sector sizes were set as powers of two (most common 512
bytes or 4096 bytes) for convenience in processing. It was a natural extension to give
the capacity of a disk drive in multiples of the sector size, giving a mix of decimal and
binary multiples when expressing total disk capacity.

Examples of use[edit]

1.44 MB floppy disks can store 1,474,560 bytes of data. MB in this context means
1,0001,024 bytes.

Depending on compression methods and file format, a megabyte of data can roughly
be:
a 1 megapixel bitmap image with 256 colors (8 bits/pixel color depth) stored without
any compression.
a 4 megapixel JPEG image with normal compression.
about 1 minute of 128 kbit/s MP3 compressed music.
6 seconds of uncompressed CD audio.

a typical English book volume in plain text format (500 pages 2000 characters per
page).
The human genome consists of DNA representing 800 MB of data. The parts that
differentiate one person from another can be compressed to 4 MB.[5]

See also[edit]

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