Bytes

A “byte,” a small unit of computer memory. “Bytes” are about size.  They come in Kilobytes, Megabytes,  Gigabytes, Terabytes and more.

• kB  (kilobytes) is one thousand bytes
• MB (megabytes) is one million bytes
• GB (gigabytes) is one billion bytes
• TB (terabytes) is one trillion bytes.

For the regular user of a computer all you really need to understand is that the size of your computer is measured in MB or GB. More accurately, the size of your computer’s hard drive is measured in MB or GB. There’s a really big range of sizes now available in the market. The bigger the hard drive the more it can hold.

If you use your computer for email, looking things up on the Web, and a few other things, all computers now available on the market will be fine.

If you use your computer to keep photos, music and videos, that’s different. Those files can be big.  It’s hard to say exactly how much memory you might need but here’s a way to think about it:

• 1 photo might be 3MB,
• 1 recording might be 4MB, and
• a five minute movie could be 835 MB.

So if  you have 500 photos you need 1.5GB of room, 500 recordings requires 2.0 GB and 1 hour of movie 10 GB.  Many people store these big files on an external hard drive. But that’s a different story.

Here’s the link where I found those numbers and where you can read more.

Do you have enough memory on your computer for what you want to do?