The Memory Capacity

Prepared by: Kristine Emerald Llunar

Memory Capacity
• The amount of data a device can store at any given time in its memory.
• It can vary depending on the type and number of memory devices, such as RAM,
ROM, or hard disk.
• It can affect the performance and efficiency of a device.
• The human brain’s memory capacity is estimated to be in the trillions of bytes, but
it is hard to measure precisely.
• The amount of data a device can store at any given time in its memory.
Memory
• The general term used to describe where the computer hold data and instructions before and
after they are processed. The term “memory” identifies data storage. The word “storage” is
used for memory that exists on tapes or disks the most basic unit of capacity in a computer
is the bit.

Bit
• stands for binary digit. Bits are combined to form bytes. It is a group of bits on which the
computer can operate as a unit.
Units of Memory
A computer processor is made up of multiple decisive circuits, each one of which may be
either OFF or ON. These two states in terms of memory are represented by a 0 or 1. To count
higher than 1, such bits (Binary Digits) are suspended together. A group of eight bits is known
as a Byte. 1 Byte can represent numbers between zero (00000000) and 255 (11111111), or 2 8 =
256 distinct positions. Of course, these bytes may also be combined to represent larger
numbers. The computer represents all characters and numbers internally in the same fashion.
Bit
In a computer, data is stored in the form of 0s and 1s. We can store each and every data in a
computer with the help of 0s and 1s. Each digit, either 0 or 1, is called a Bit. The Bit is the
smallest unit of memory. Bit simply refers to the binary digit.

Nibble
It is just a greater version of Bit. It is a combination of 4 bits of binary digits or half of an
Octet. A nibble can be represented by a single hexadecimal digit.

Byte
It is the representation of a group of 8 bits. Moreover, a byte is a unit that expresses any
word, symbol, or character in the computer language. Besides, computer memory is always
in terms of multiples of bytes.
Kilobyte
• It is the most common unit of memory which is the smallest of all. But, it is greater than the byte.
• The abbreviation for kilobytes is ‘KB’.
• It contains 1000 bytes. Besides, it is synonyms to kibibytes which contain 1024 (2^10) bytes.
• Megabytes usually measures the size of text documents, graphics of websites, individual files, etc

Megabyte
• The abbreviation for megabyte is ‘MB’.
• It contains 1000,000 bytes. Besides, it is synonyms to mebibytes which contains 1048576 (2^20)
bytes.
• Kilobytes usually measure the size of large files. For example high-resolution images, songs,
storage of compact disks, etc.
 Gigabyte
• The abbreviation for the gigabyte is ‘GB’ or ‘gigs’.
• It contains 1000,000,000 bytes. Besides, it is synonyms to gibibytes which contain 1073741824
(2^30) bytes.
• Kilobytes usually measure the capacity of storage devices.

Terabyte
• The abbreviation for terabytes is ‘TB’.
• It contains one trillion bytes. Besides, it is synonyms to tebibytes which contains 2^40 bytes.
• Kilobytes usually measure the capacity of large storage devices, for example, HDDs (Hard Disk
Drives).
Petabyte
• The abbreviation for petabyte is ‘PB’.
• It contains 10^15 bytes. Besides, it is synonyms to pebibytes which contains 2^50 bytes.
• Petabytes usually measure the total data storage in large networks or server farms. For example,
the data in Google or Facebook data servers is around more than 10 PBs.

Exabyte
• The abbreviation for exabyte is ‘EB’.
• It contains 10^18 bytes. Besides, it is synonyms to exbibytes which contains 2^60 bytes.
• The exabyte unit is so large that it does not even measure the storage of large cloud servers.
Rather, it can be used to measure the amount of data transfer over the internet for a certain time
limit.
Zettabyte
• The abbreviation for zettabyte is ‘ZB’.
• It contains 10^21 bytes. Besides, it is synonyms to zebibytes which contains 2^70 bytes.
• It can measure a huge amount of data. In fact, the whole data in the world is just a few zettabytes.

Yottabyte
• The abbreviation for yottabyte is ‘YB’.
• It contains 10^24 zettabytes. Besides, it is synonyms to yobibytes which contains 2^80 bytes.
• It is a tremendously huge unit of measurement. Therefore, it has no practical use.
 Name Equal To Size (In Bytes)

Bit 1 Bit 1/8

Nibble 4 Bits 1/2 (rare)

Byte 8 Bits 1

Kilobyte 1024 Bytes 1024

Megabyte 1, 024 Kilobytes 1, 048, 576

Gigabyte 1, 024 Megabytes 1, 073, 741, 824

Terrabyte 1, 024 Gigabytes 1, 099, 511, 627, 776

Petabyte 1, 024 Terabytes 1, 125, 899, 906, 842, 624

Exabyte 1, 024 Petabytes 1, 152, 921, 504, 606, 846, 976

Zettabyte 1, 024 Exabytes 1, 180, 591, 620, 717, 411, 303, 424

Yottabyte 1, 024 Zettabytes 1, 208, 925, 819, 614, 629, 174, 706, 176