Everything that is saved to the computer requires different amounts of space. Space, in it's most basic form, is made up of bits. The most commonly used unit is bytes (bites) which are 8 times larger than a bit. These are the two forms of measurement. Thankfully, the naming system runs off the metric system from here.
Most of us know that when I say millimeter, I'm referring to a distance that is 1/1000th of a meter. Likewise, if I say kilometer, I'm talking about a distance that is 1000 times longer than a meter. Bytes can be measured in a similar way but instead of using increments of 1000, they go in increments of 1024. Why? Computers like numbers that fit in the 2^x formula. This means that if you multiply 2x2 enough times you will hit 1024. Once we reach 1024 bytes, we will simplify it to 1 kilobyte. Once we reach 1024 kilobytes, we condense it to 1 megabyte. "Mega" in the metric system means 1,000,000 times bigger. The naming scheme continues as such:
1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte or GB = 2^30 bytes
1024 gigabytes = 1 terabyte or TB = 2^40 bytes
Hear's an Idea for How Big Everything Is
A typical computer's hard drive will likely be anywhere from 250 GB's on the low end all the way up to a few TB's. But the question you want to know is how much space do I need? This all depends on what you will be doing. If you just want to do casual things like surfing the web or typing a word document, any amount of space will do. If you mostly listen to music you will need about 7 to 15 MB's per song in high quality. This means that if you had 100 songs that we're 10 MB's that would almost equal 1 GB. You can fit a lot of music on just about any hard drive considering most hard drives have many Gbs. For gamers, a full 3D game will use about 1 GB to 12 GB's. Modern games are constantly using more and more space for higher definition content, so the required space will continue to rise for the latest games. Games can add up fast on a hard drive if you have a lot of them. This shouldn't be a problem if you have a larger hard drive. Videos are another thing that can take up a lot of space. It's hard to put a number on how big they can be. Factors such as video quality, size, duration and compression have a lot to do with determine the amount of space a video will take. For instance, a single downloaded full HD movie can use 5 GB's or more. Pictures, on the other hand, rarely take up much space but they can add up to several GB's if you have a lot of them.
Most of us know that when I say millimeter, I'm referring to a distance that is 1/1000th of a meter. Likewise, if I say kilometer, I'm talking about a distance that is 1000 times longer than a meter. Bytes can be measured in a similar way but instead of using increments of 1000, they go in increments of 1024. Why? Computers like numbers that fit in the 2^x formula. This means that if you multiply 2x2 enough times you will hit 1024. Once we reach 1024 bytes, we will simplify it to 1 kilobyte. Once we reach 1024 kilobytes, we condense it to 1 megabyte. "Mega" in the metric system means 1,000,000 times bigger. The naming scheme continues as such:
1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte or KB = 2^10 bytes
1024 kilobytes = 1 megabyte or MB = 2^20 bytes1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte or GB = 2^30 bytes
1024 gigabytes = 1 terabyte or TB = 2^40 bytes
Hear's an Idea for How Big Everything Is
A typical computer's hard drive will likely be anywhere from 250 GB's on the low end all the way up to a few TB's. But the question you want to know is how much space do I need? This all depends on what you will be doing. If you just want to do casual things like surfing the web or typing a word document, any amount of space will do. If you mostly listen to music you will need about 7 to 15 MB's per song in high quality. This means that if you had 100 songs that we're 10 MB's that would almost equal 1 GB. You can fit a lot of music on just about any hard drive considering most hard drives have many Gbs. For gamers, a full 3D game will use about 1 GB to 12 GB's. Modern games are constantly using more and more space for higher definition content, so the required space will continue to rise for the latest games. Games can add up fast on a hard drive if you have a lot of them. This shouldn't be a problem if you have a larger hard drive. Videos are another thing that can take up a lot of space. It's hard to put a number on how big they can be. Factors such as video quality, size, duration and compression have a lot to do with determine the amount of space a video will take. For instance, a single downloaded full HD movie can use 5 GB's or more. Pictures, on the other hand, rarely take up much space but they can add up to several GB's if you have a lot of them.
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