What is larger than a megabyte or a gigabyte - let's figure out the units of measurement, About your computer. What are bits and bytes? How many kilobytes are in a megabyte

From this article you will learn how many bits are in one byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte.

If you have dealt with storage media, you have probably heard about bits, bytes, megabytes, gigabytes or terabytes. But not all people know how these units of measurement are related to each other. This is known to professionals in the field of IT technologies and simply advanced people who are familiar with digital information.

We are used to calculating quantities using decimal systems, and if there is a prefix “kilo”, it means we need to multiply by a thousand. But when measuring digital information, there is a different calculation system.

So, how many bits are in a byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte? But first, it’s worth understanding what a bit or byte is and other units of measurement.

Users often wonder: what is larger: a kilobyte or a megabyte, or a gigabyte, or a terabyte?
From the above information it can be seen that the largest amount of memory is calculated in terabytes, and the smallest in bits.

The table for converting bytes to kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes or terabytes is most convenient to read.

Now you know that a megabyte is larger than a kilobyte, but less than a gigabyte. The largest unit of measurement is the terabyte.
Currently, IT specialists also know other units of measurement such as petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte and yottabyte. But the most popular ones for measuring memory are bits, bytes, kilo-, mega-, giga- and terabytes.

If you have a table at hand for converting large units into smaller ones, then simply calculate what, for example, 2 megabytes or gigabytes will be equal to. Exact conversion result:

1 MB = 8388608 bits
1 GB = 8589934592 bits
2 MB = 16777216 bits
2 GB = 17179869184 bits

Another common question among users of the global network: what is more megabytes or gigabytes for the Internet? More often, the gigabyte is used to measure the amount of information on the Internet. To understand what is bigger, you need to look at the numbers. A gigabyte is larger than a megabyte and is equal to 1024 MB.

If you can't figure out which unit of measurement is larger and which is smaller, remember meters and centimeters. There are 100 cm in one meter, just like in gigabytes there is a certain number of megabytes, but not a hundred, but much more.

Video: 08 bit byte number system

If you didn’t have computer science at school or college or you skipped classes where the basics were explained, you may be confused about units of measurement. And perhaps you are ashamed to admit this to your acquaintances and friends, so as not to seem ignorant.

No problem! This article will help you figure out, for example, what is larger than a megabyte or a gigabyte, so that you not only are not ashamed of gaps in your education, but also freely navigate the files that are stored or are just about to settle on your computer.

A computer is an artificial intelligence created by people. And unlike us, a computer processes information in a special way; it naturally does not have nerve cells, feelings and sensations, and much more that is inherent in humans. He perceives information in numbers using the binary system, namely the numbers 0 and 1.

The smallest unit of information processing is the bit.

Bit (English bit) is either zero or one, it is formed in semiconductor transistors, which are switches. Under the influence of pulses, the transistor can close or open, that is, turn on or off. When it is turned on, it is one; if there is no signal, it is zero. The central processing unit is a brain made up of millions of transistors, just like the human brain is made up of neurons. The processor consists of silicon crystals, each of which can accommodate up to a million of these transistors.

But when eight of these small “particles” of bits are added to larger blocks, they turn into “elegant” bytes.

A byte is an ordered set, a collection of bits that a computer processes simultaneously. One byte is not only equal to 8 bits, but is necessarily a multiple of two. True, there are other computing systems, but these are non-standard systems that we will not consider; we will leave this to computer science professors.

The more bytes a processor processes per unit time, the higher its operating speed.

Next, let's look at prefixes. You probably know kilobits, megabits, gigabytes, and so on. If you understand what a bit and a byte are, then the rest will be much easier. To understand for yourself what is larger than a megabyte or a gigabyte, you need to understand the meaning of the prefixes.

Of course, there is a generally accepted system and corresponding tables with designations of units of measurement of computer information. But it often happens that an ordinary user, having glanced at it, after some time forgets all this information and again wonders what is more and what is less.

Kilo – 1 thousand. Remember the kilogram, this association will help you.
Mega – 1 million. To make it easier to remember: mega is a thousand thousand.
Giga - 1 billion. One followed by 9 zeros, comes from the word “giant”.

Accordingly, adding these prefixes to the bits and bytes we already know, we get values that everyone knows and can now distinguish what is more and what is less.

But it's not that simple. We are dealing with the binary system, not the decimal system that ordinary people, not programmers, are used to. Therefore, for example, 1 kilobyte will not be equal to 1000 bytes, but will be equal to 2 10, which is equal to 1024. If you have forgotten the elementary school course, then this is two raised to the 10th power or multiplied by itself 10 times. Picture for clarity.

The numbers 256 and 512 clearly resemble something, don’t they? Right, These are common amounts of RAM. And now it’s clear why these are exactly these numbers and not any others.

And here is a table of the values of units of measurement accepted in computer science, which every programmer is able to read from memory, even if he is woken up in the middle of the night.

Now it becomes clear what is more than a megabyte or gigabyte, and what is less than a kilobyte or the same megabyte.

In order to see the size of a file, you need to right-click on it and open properties, there you will see how much space it takes up on your hard drive.

Modern computers are so smart that they can process different types of information using bits and bytes, both numerical and textual, graphic, as well as video and sounds. This is why we can enjoy watching movies, high-quality images on our PCs, exchanging emails, writing messages on social networks, listening to music and sharing all this with other people without thinking about those microscopic transistors that allow us to do this.

Many people can no longer imagine their lives without computers, tablets and PDAs. We use them every day, considering them something ordinary, without even thinking about the fact that just 100 years ago computers did not exist at all.

Let us remember with a kind word the English mathematician Charles Babbage, who conceived the creation of a computer at the end of the 19th century, as well as the German and American scientists who, in the 40s of the last century, realized this idea by launching the world's first computer weighing 28 tons. And let’s not forget to remember the great American engineer and mathematician Claude Shannon, the founder of the theory of computer science, who in 1948 introduced the concept of “bit”.

Information in a computer is what the computer displays on the monitor screen, as well as what the user enters from the keyboard. Information provided by a computer is data that is processed by a computer system using the binary number system. In general - in the form of zero and one. In particular - in the form of physical quantities, in the presence or absence of electric current.

For example, the following dialog box appears: “Do you want to remove this program?” And three answer options: “Yes”, “No”, “Cancel”. If you select the “Yes” option, then a one will be written to the processor, that is, an electrical signal will be received and the program will be deleted, if you select the “No” option, then a zero will be written to the computer processor, there will be no electrical signal and, of course, nothing will happen. The “Cancel” command, as well as the “No” command, nothing will happen.

This example is given in order to clearly understand that the computer understands only two numbers - 0 and 1. Text, music, images, programs - all this information is presented to the computer in the form of 0 and 1.

And there can be a large number of such zeros and ones, from which large amounts of data are obtained (in one working day there can be a large number of different dialog boxes, dozens of programs are opened and closed). Therefore, special notations were invented to facilitate understanding. These designations include: bit, byte, KB, MB, GB and terabyte.

What is a beat?

A bit is the smallest unit of measurement of information volume. 1 bit is one value (one number). For example, when 3 bits are written, this means that the computer stores three numbers consisting of zeros and ones. For example: 01 01 01 or 11 00 01. The sequence of numbers can be any. The bit is designated by a small letter – “b”.

What is a byte?

A byte, like a bit, is also a unit of measurement for the amount of information in a computer, but it is a little larger. 1 byte is equal to 8 bits. That is, 8 digits. For example, a computer file stores information that is equal to 6 bytes. It is known that 1 byte is 8 bits, and it is very easy to calculate, you need 8 * 6 = 48 bits. A byte is larger than a bit by the value of 8. It also contains only two numbers 0 and 1. When the information in a computer is more than eight characters, numbers, pixels (dots), a byte is used. A byte is designated by the capital letter “B”, the Russian designation is “byte”.

What is KB?

You can already guess that a kilobyte consists of bytes. And 1 kilobyte contains 1024 bytes. For simplified understanding, 1 kilobyte can fit a small text in Word or a text document, as well as in a message. A kilobyte is designated “KB”.

What is MB?

Megabyte is one of the most common units of information measurement, as it has the optimal size for music and graphic files. 1 megabyte contains 1024 KB. Megabytes are denoted by large and small letters - MB.

What is GB?

A gigabyte is one of the largest units for measuring the amount of information. Mostly used for video and is also considered the standard for DVDs. All films in good quality have a volume of information in gigabytes. If MB is used, then the video is considered to be of low quality. 1 GB is 1024 MB.

What is a terabyte?

Terabyte is mainly used when you need to install several games with a large amount of information on your computer.

What is more KB or MB?

MB is larger than KB, since there are more bits in a megabyte, which means more information can fit. For example, if a file contains 100 MB, it means that it will take up more space on your hard drive or phone memory than a file that contains 100 KB.

Determining which unit of measurement of information is greater is very simple. The main thing to remember is that the value of each amount of information is 1024.

The smallest unit of information processing is the bit.

But when eight of these small “particles” of bits are added to larger blocks, they turn into “elegant” bytes.

The more bytes a processor processes per unit time, the higher its operating speed.

Kilo – 1 thousand. Remember the kilogram, this association will help you.
Mega – 1 million. To make it easier to remember: mega is a thousand thousand.
Giga - 1 billion. One followed by 9 zeros, comes from the word “giant”.

Accordingly, adding these prefixes to the bits and bytes we already know, we get values that everyone knows and can now distinguish what is more and what is less.

The numbers 256 and 512 clearly resemble something, don’t they? Right, These are common amounts of RAM. And now it’s clear why these are exactly these numbers and not any others.

And here is a table of the values of units of measurement accepted in computer science, which every programmer is able to read from memory, even if he is woken up in the middle of the night.

Now it becomes clear what is more than a megabyte or gigabyte, and what is less than a kilobyte or the same megabyte.

In order to see the size of a file, you need to right-click on it and open properties, there you will see how much space it takes up on your hard drive.

6 comments on this post What is bigger: megabyte or gigabyte?

We had computer science at school. But we didn’t study it very diligently. I know that a gigabyte is larger than a megabyte, and a megabyte is larger than a byte. But I completely forgot that bytes are calculated using the binary system, and not the usual decimal system. Insanely useful article! Everything is short, clear and understandable, just like in a textbook.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a new term is introduced next. After all, many already have several Terabytes. I don’t know what it will be called, but it will have 1024 terabytes. I wonder how quickly all this will be introduced, or only in 20 years. Although if you think about it, before 40 GB was enough, now this figure is completely ridiculous!

Useful table for translation. Otherwise, even young people who recently graduated from school with an excellent grade in computer science confuse megabytes and gigabytes, and if you also tell them about speed, which is measured in kilobits per second, then they become confused. This is what many Internet providers take advantage of, offering large numbers in small units of measurement.

Yes, both megabyte and gigabyte are outdated concepts. Even a terabyte is already too small - the production of memory for PCs and other computing devices is developing at such a pace. Soon the entire library of the US Congress will be written on a poppy seed! I wonder what will happen next and is there a limit to scientific and technological progress?

Almost everyone who has had any contact with a computer knows that a megabyte is smaller than a gigabyte. The meanings of megabyte and gigabyte are clear not only to all users, but even to people who are not related to “advanced” PC users. For example, even my grandfather knows that a gigabyte is more than a megabyte?

Yes, in principle, everything is very simple, at least for those who have been using a computer and the Internet for a long time. But for the younger generation it is certainly not so simple. Although I think they know more about the binary system, it's harder for adults to understand because they weren't taught it much in school.

What is information and where is it located on the device?

Information is one of the most expensive and valuable goods, and in some cases it can act as the main weapon against another person. It is especially valued among international companies and corporations.

This term directly affected the sphere of high technology, where information is measured in a special way. Anyone who uses any device should know and understand the units of measurement used in this case.

MB, GB or KB is the amount of information used by a computer and stored on its hard drive. It records both new and deleted old data.

Where is data stored on a computer?

Any personal computer or laptop has a hard drive in which all its existing information is stored. Before defining such concepts as “kilobyte” or “megabyte”, it is necessary to understand the structure of the place where the data is stored.

A hard drive consists of an electric motor, disks, heads and a set of circuits.

Previously, there were at least 2 disks (pancakes) in this device, and their total number could reach 4 or more. Nowadays hard drives have 2 or even 1 such “damn”. This happened due to the development of computer technologies, which make it possible to increase the density of information recording on the medium.

The number of disks has decreased several times, and the amount of information that they can record has increased many times over. The newest versions of hard drives have only one pancake and can contain up to 3 terabytes of information.

Basic units of information

The smallest unit of information is called a bit. It can only take 2 values - 0 or 1.

The next term is "byte". A byte forms a whole block (octet) of information, which consists of 8 bits.

What does the term “kilobyte (KB)” mean? The amount of information stored by a device is always different, and every year it only grows. We can take RAM as an example. Previously, its volume did not exceed 2 gigabytes, but in our time even 4 will not be enough. It is because of this that values derived from bytes appeared. That is, KB is a derivative of “byte”. Various prefixes are used, including “kilo-”, “mega-”, “giga-” and so on. The size of a KB is 1021 bytes, which is equal to 2 10 bytes.

Derived units

Derived units of information have been added to shorten the notation. Such derivative words are used not only in the field of high technology, but also, for example, in physics, where the meter is used to measure length, and its derivatives are kilometer, nanometer and others. TB, GB, MB and KB are derivatives formed by adding various prefixes:

tera-;
giga-;
mega-;
kilo-.

These prefixes became widespread back in 1789, when they were used in sciences such as physics. The very first of them were “kilo-” and “mega-”. They are necessary so that the recording of the amount of information is not so voluminous, that is, to make it easier to read. For example, converting 819,200 KB to MB, we get only 100 MB, which is extremely convenient for visual perception.

Translation of derivatives

GB, MB or KB - this is the same information that surrounds us everywhere. All the time, the volume of information in devices increases, and sometimes you have to face the need to transfer it to another level. For greater convenience, you need to familiarize yourself with the first three positions from the table below:

It was said above that 1 byte contains 8 bits, and you need to convert bits to kilobytes a little differently. For example, there are 128 bits that need to be converted into bytes. Since 1 B = 8 bits, the number 128 is divided by 8. The result is the number 16.

A computer, laptop or any other device perceives information only in its own language. In computer science, there is such an area as programming, and programmers write all their work in the language of the source device, to a greater extent this is the binary system, although in this area another one is also used - the hexadecimal number system.

Converting from bits to kilobytes is not so complicated, but there are other nuances. Some computer users may be confused about how many KB are in MB or how many GB are in 1 TB. The latter term has appeared recently due to the significant increase in hard drive capacity. In order not to get confused, you need to consider the table that has already been mentioned above. It should especially be shown to those new to using a computer, which will help clarify some difficult points for them.

Nowadays, high technologies are increasingly seeping into everyday life. But just a few decades ago, computers were considered an expensive product that could only belong to wealthy people.

People who have used a phone, tablet or computer are sure to come across terms such as “byte”, “megabyte” or “gigabyte”. And of course, they begin to ask questions about what exactly they mean and what they are used for. This is what our article will be devoted to.

What is information and where is it located on the device?

MB, GB or KB is the amount of information used by a computer and stored on its hard drive. It records both new and deleted old data.

Where is data stored on a computer?

A hard drive consists of an electric motor, disks, heads and a set of circuits.

Previously, there were at least 2 disks (pancakes) in this device, and their total number could reach 4 or more. Now they have 2 or even 1 such “damn”. This happened due to the development of computer technologies, which make it possible to increase the density of information recording on the medium.

Basic units of information

The smallest unit of information is called a bit. It can only take 2 values - 0 or 1.

The next term is "byte". A byte forms a whole block (octet) of information, which consists of 8 bits.

What does the term “kilobyte (KB)” mean? The amount of information stored by a device is always different, and every year it only grows. We can take as an example: Previously, its volume did not exceed 2 gigabytes, but in our time even 4 will not be enough. It is because of this that the values derived from the byte appeared. That is, KB is a derivative of “byte”. Various prefixes are used, including “kilo-”, “mega-”, “giga-” and so on. The size of a KB is 1021 bytes, which is equal to 2 10 bytes.

Derived units

tera-;
giga-;
mega-;
kilo-.

Translation of derivatives

In today's article we will deal with measuring information. All the pictures, sounds and videos that we see on our monitor screens are nothing more than numbers. And these numbers can be measured, and now you will learn how to convert megabits to megabytes and megabytes to gigabytes.

If it is important for you to know how many MB are in 1 GB or how many are in 1 MB KB, then this article is for you. Most often, such data is needed by programmers who estimate the volume occupied by their programs, but sometimes it does not interfere with ordinary users to estimate the size of downloaded or stored data.

In short, all you need to know is this:

1 byte = 8 bits

1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes

1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes

1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes

1 terabyte = 1024 gigabytes

Common abbreviations: kilobyte=kb, megabyte=mb, gigabyte=gb.

I recently received a question from a reader of mine: “Which is bigger, kb or mb?” I hope that now everyone knows the answer.

Units of measurement information in detail

In the information world, it is not the usual decimal measurement system that is used, but a binary one. This means that one digit can take values not from 0 to 9, but from 0 to 1.

The simplest unit of measurement of information is 1 bit; it can be equal to 0 or 1. But this value is very small for the modern amount of data, so bits are rarely used. Bytes are most often used; 1 byte is equal to 8 bits and can take a value from 0 to 15 (hexadecimal number system). True, instead of numbers 10-15, letters from A to F are used.

But these volumes of data are small, so the familiar prefixes kilo- (thousand), mega-(million), giga-(billion) are used.

It is worth noting that in the information world, a kilobyte is not equal to 1000 bytes, but 1024. And if you want to know how many kilobytes are in a megabyte, then you will also get the number 1024. When asked how many megabytes are in a gigabyte, you will hear the same answer - 1024.

This is also determined by the peculiarity of the binary number system. If, when using tens, we obtain each new digit by multiplying by 10 (1, 10, 100, 1000, etc.), then in the binary system a new digit appears after multiplying by 2.

It looks like this:

2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024

A number consisting of 10 binary digits can only have 1024 values. This is more than 1000, but is closest to the usual prefix kilo-. Mega-, giga- and tera- are used in the same way.