💾 Ko, Mo, Go, To... Finally understanding storage units in computing!

When buying a computer, smartphone or USB stick, indications like 64 GB, 512 GB or even 1 TB often appear. Yet these storage units can still be difficult to understand.

What exactly do they represent? What is the difference between a KB, an MB, a GB and a TB?

In this new IT Concept, the focus is on how to measure the storage capacity of a device.

📌 What is a storage unit?

A storage unit is used to measure the amount of data a device can record.

This data can be:

• photos 📷;
• videos 🎥;
• documents 📄;
• music 🎵;
• software 💻.

The larger the unit, the more files the device can store.

🔢 Bit and byte: the basics

In computing, everything is based on 0s and 1s.

The smallest unit is the bit (binary digit).

➡️ 8 bits = 1 byte (B)

The byte is then used as the base unit for measuring storage capacities.

💡 Key point: storage units are built from the byte.

💾 KB (kilobyte)

The KB corresponds to around 1,000 bytes (more precisely 1,024 bytes in traditional computing).

It is used to store very small files.

Example:

📄 A simple text page may weigh a few KB.

📀 MB (megabyte)

The MB represents around 1,000 KB (or 1,024 KB).

It is used to measure medium-sized files.

Example: