A megabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 10⁶ (1,000,000) bytes or 2²⁰ (1,048,576) bytes, depending on context. A bit is a binary digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1 Binary digits are a basic unit of Information storage and communication A byte (pronounced "bite" baɪt is the basic unit of measurement of information storage in Computer science. An SI prefix (also known as a metric prefix) is a name or associated symbol that precedes a unit of measure (or its symbol to form a Decimal multiple or Kilo- (symbol k is a prefix in the SI and other systems of units denoting 103 or 1000 Mega- (symbol M) is an SI prefix in the SI system of units denoting a factor of 106, 1000000 (one Million For other meanings see Giga (disambiguation Giga- (symbol G is a prefix in the SI system of units denoting 109 teras- (symbol T) is a prefix in the SI system of units denoting 1012, or 1000000000000 (1 trillion In Physics and Mathematics, peta- (symbol P) is a prefix in the SI ( System of units) denoting 1015 exa- (symbol E) is a prefix in the SI system of units denoting 1018 or 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 zetta- (symbol Z) is an SI prefix in the SI ( System of units) denoting 1021 or 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 yotta- (symbol Y) is an SI prefix in the SI ( System of units) denoting 1024 or 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 IEC 60027 (formerly IEC 27) is the International Electrotechnical Commission 's standard on Letter symbols to be used in electrical technology. JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, formerly known as J oint E lectron D evice E ngineering C ouncil ( JEDEC) or Joint Information as a concept has a diversity of meanings from everyday usage to technical settings Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to Computer components devices and recording media that retain digital A byte (pronounced "bite" baɪt is the basic unit of measurement of information storage in Computer science. In rare cases, it is used to mean 1000×1024 (1,024,000) bytes. It is commonly abbreviated as Mbyte or MB (compare Mb, for the megabit). A megabit is a unit of Information or computer storage abbreviated Mbit (or Mb) The term megabyte was coined in 1970. ^[1]

Definition

The term "megabyte" is ambiguous because it is commonly used to mean either 1000² bytes or 1024² bytes. The confusion originated as compromise technical jargon for the byte multiples that needed to be expressed by the powers of 2 but lacked a convenient name. An SI prefix (also known as a metric prefix) is a name or associated symbol that precedes a unit of measure (or its symbol to form a Decimal multiple or Year 2 ( II) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Julian calendar. As 1024 (2¹⁰) is roughly equal to 1000 (10³), roughly corresponding SI multiples began to be used as approximate binary multiples. By the end of 2007, standards and government authorities including IEC, IEEE, EU, and NIST, had addressed this ambiguity by promulgating standards requiring the use of megabyte to describe strictly 1000² bytes and "mebibyte" to describe 1024² bytes. The International Electrotechnical Commission ( IEC) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental international Standards organization that prepares and publishes The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (read eye-triple-e) is an international Non-profit, professional organization The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in A mebibyte (a contraction of me ga bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, abbreviated MiB. This is reflected in an increasing number of software projects, but most file managers still show file sizes in "megabytes" ("MB") in the binary sense (1024² bytes). A file manager or file browser is a Computer program that provides a User interface to work with File systems The most common operations used The term remains ambiguous and it can follow any one of the following common definitions:

1. 1,000,000 bytes (1000², 10⁶): This is the definition recommended by the International System of Units (SI) and the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC. The International Electrotechnical Commission ( IEC) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental international Standards organization that prepares and publishes This definition is used in networking contexts and most storage media, particularly hard drives, Flash-based storage, 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. A computer network is a group of interconnected Computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics A data storage device is a device for recording (storing information (data A hard disk drive ( HDD) commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a Non-volatile storage device Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is An SI prefix (also known as a metric prefix) is a name or associated symbol that precedes a unit of measure (or its symbol to form a Decimal multiple or The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. Measuring performance In order for FLOPS to be useful as a measure of floating-point performance a standard benchmark must be available on all computers of interest
2. 1,048,576 bytes (1024², 2²⁰): This definition is most commonly used in reference to computer memory, but most software that display file size or drive capacity, including file managers also use this definition. A file manager or file browser is a Computer program that provides a User interface to work with File systems The most common operations used See Consumer confusion (in the "gigabyte" article). A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix Giga-) is a unit of Information or Computer
3. 1,024,000 bytes (1000×1024): This is used to describe the formatted capacity of USB flash drives and the "1. 44 MB" 3. 5 inch HD floppy disk, which actually has a 1,440 KiB capacity, that is, 1,440×1,024 bytes, or 1,474,560 bytes. A floppy disk is an increasingly Obsolete data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin flexible ("floppy" Magnetic storage medium encased A kibibyte (a contraction of ki lo bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, established by the International

1. 44 MB floppy disks can store 1,474,560 bytes of data. MB in this context means 1,000 times 1,024 bytes.

Megabyte examples

Depending on compression methods and file format, a megabyte of data can roughly be:

• a 1024×1024 pixel bitmap image with 256 colors (8 bpp color depth). A file format is a particular way to encode information for storage in a Computer file. In Computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or Image file format used to store Digital images The Color depth. or bit depth, is a Computer graphics term describing the number of Bits used to represent the Color of a single Pixel
• 1 minute of 128 kbit/s MP3 compressed music. In telecommunications Bit rate or Data transfer rate is the average number of Bits characters or blocks per unit time passing between equipment in a data transmission MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a Digital audio encoding format using a form of Lossy data compression For processes which reduce the amount of time it takes to listen to and understand a recording see Time-compressed speech.
• 6 seconds of uncompressed CD audio. A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio
• a typical book volume in text format (500 pages × 2000 characters).

See also

• binary prefix
• kilobyte
• gigabyte
• mebibyte
• megabit
• orders of magnitude (data)

References

External links

• Historical Notes About The Cost Of Hard Drive Storage Space
• the megabyte (established definition in Networking and Storage industries; from whatis.com)
• International Electrotechnical Commission definitions
• IEC prefixes and symbols for binary multiples