Introduction
If you are having their first contact with the digital world or if you use computing devices for some time, but time or another is lost with designations such as megabit and gigabyte, this article will be helpful. Here, the AbbreviationFinder features a brief explanation about bits, bytes and other names related that will help you to better understand how the measurement is made volumes of data in computers.
Bits and bytes
The computers “understand” the electrical impulses, positive or negative, which are represented by 1 or 0. Each electrical impulse we give the name of the bit (BInary digiT). A set of 8-bit assembled as a single unit form a byte.
In computers, to represent 256 in binary numbers is enough so that we can deal effectively with these machines. Thus, the bytes have 8 bits. Just do the calculations: as a bit represents two types of values (1 or 0) and a byte represents 8 bits, just make 2 (bit) high 8 (byte) that is equal to 256.
The bytes that represent all the letters (uppercase and lowercase), punctuation marks, accents, special characters, and even information that we cannot see, but which serve to control the computer and can even be sent by the keyboard or on the other device input data and instructions.
For this to happen, the computers use a table that combines binary numbers with symbols: the table ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). In it, each byte represents a character or a sign.
From there, they were created several terms to facilitate the human understanding of the storage capacity, processing and manipulation of data in computers. With regard to the bits and bytes, has the following measures:
1 Byte = 8 bits
1 kilobyte (KB or Kb) = 1024 bytes
1 megabyte (MB or Mb) = 1024 kilobytes
1 gigabyte (GB or Gbytes) = 1024 megabytes
1 terabyte (TB or Tbytes) = 1024 gigabytes
1 petabyte (PB or Pbytes) = 1024 terabytes
1 exabyte (EB or Ebytes) = 1024 petabytes
1 zettabyte (ZB or Zbytes) = 1024 exabytes
1 yottabyte (YB or Ybytes) = 1024 zettabytes
It is also by means of bytes that determines the length the word of a computer, that is, the number of bits that the device use in the composition of the internal instructions, as for example:
8-bit => word 1 byte
16 bits => 2-byte word
32-bit => word 4 bytes
In the transmission of data between devices, typically uses measurements of related bits and not bytes. Thus, there are also the following terms:
1 kilobit (Kb or Kbit) = 1,024 bits
1 megabit (Mb or Mbit) = 1024 Kilobits
1 gigabit (Gb or Gbit) = 1024 Megabits
1 terabit (Tb or Tbit) = 1024 Gigabits
And so on. You should already have noticed that, when the measurement is based on bytes, the letter ‘b’ in the acronym is a capital (as in G(B). When the measurement it is made in bits, the ‘b’ of the acronym is in lower case (as in G(b).
As already mentioned, the use of measurements in bits it is common to report the volume of data transmissions. Usually, indicates the number of bits transmitted per second. Thus, when we want to say that a particular device is able to work, for example, with 54 megabits per second, uses the expression 54 Mb/s:
1 Kb/s = 1 kilobit per second
1 Mb/s = 1 megabit per second
1 Gb/s = 1 gigabit per second
And so on.
In the United States, it is common to use Kbps, Mbps or Gbps to express the quantity of bits transferred, with the termination “ps” referring to “per second(for second)”. However, “hp” is an acronym for picossegundo, according to the International System of Units, therefore, the use of “/s”it is more appropriate to express the bits transferred per second.
Kibibit, kibibyte and the like
If you purchase, for example, a HD of 500 GB, you’ll notice that the operating system of the computer will show a smaller capacity that this in relation to the device. This is because the systems operating, in general, assume 1 kilobyte as being equivalent the 1024 bytes, and thus follows with megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, etc. as explained above. However, for manufacturers of disks hard drives or SSD devices, for example, 1 kilobyte corresponds to 1000 bytes, and so on.
After all, that is correct, 1000 bytes or 1024 bytes? There are organizations that advocate either one or the other.
A possible solution to this impasse is in the terminology and abbreviations that the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) created to indicate the measurements based on 1024 bytes, which are the following:
1 kibibyte (or KiB) = 1024 bytes
1 mebibyte (or MiB) = 1024 kibibytes
1 gibibyte (or GiB) = 1024 mebibytes
1 tebibyte (or TiB) = 1024 gibibytes
1 pebibyte (or Gdp) = 1024 tebibytes
1 exbibyte (or EiB) = 1024 pebibytes
1 zebibyte (or ZiB) = 1024 exbibytes
1 yobibyte (or YiB) = 1024 zebibytes
The same prefixes of the names above are employed also in the measurements based on bit: kibibit, mebibit, gibibit, tebibit, and so on.
The system of measures drawn up by the IEC is taken as the correct one, leaving the prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, exa, zetta and yotta (which are from the International System of Units) representing 1000 bytes and its multiples (that is, powers of 10).
Ending
You must be wondering why you didn’t see (or rarely see) the system of the IEC being used, since it is taken as the correct representations of 1024 bytes. The answer, probably, is “convenience”. Such measurements are relatively recent (the first approval occurred in 1998) and, for the greater part of the industry, adopting them can generate even more disagreements and even increased costs. As a result, kilobytes, megabytes, and so continue to represent for each measurement 1024 bytes, and, for others, measurements in 1000 bytes. Up until now, the AbbreviationFinder fits in the first “group”, since the use of kilobytes, and subsequent for representations of 1024 bytes is more accepted by the readers of the site and the greater part of the most influential companies in the industry, as Google and Microsoft.
