Hisaab Lagao

Understanding Data Units & Conversion

Data units are fundamental in computing and digital storage. The smallest unit of data is a bit (b), which can represent either a 0 or 1. Multiple bits are grouped to form larger units like bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, and beyond.

Common Data Units & Their Relations

• 1 Byte (B) = 8 bits (b)
• 1 Kilobyte (KB) = 1000 Bytes (B) [Decimal]
• 1 Kibibyte (KiB) = 1024 Bytes (B) [Binary]
• 1 Megabyte (MB) = 1000 KB = 10⁶ bytes
• 1 Gibibyte (GiB) = 1024 MiB = 2³⁰ bytes
• 1 Terabyte (TB) = 1000 GB = 10¹² bytes

Binary vs Decimal Data Sizes

Computers store and process data using the binary system (base-2), but storage manufacturers often use decimal (base-10). This leads to differences in reported storage sizes:

• 1 KB (Kilobyte) = 1000 B (used in storage devices)
• 1 KiB (Kibibyte) = 1024 B (used in RAM, OS calculations)

Real-World Applications

• Internet Speeds are measured in Mbps (Megabits per second), not Megabytes.
• File Sizes are shown in MB, GB, or TB (e.g., a 1080p movie is around 2-5 GB).
• RAM & Processing use binary-based calculations (GiB, MiB).

Example Conversion Calculation

Suppose you have 500 Megabytes (MB) and want to convert it to Gigabytes (GB):

500 MB ÷ 1000 = 0.5 GB

If using binary conversion:

500 MiB ÷ 1024 = 0.488 GiB