3.3.1

Capacity

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Units of Capacity

The capacity of a device is how much data it can store. It is important to know the units of capacity so that we can compare the capacity of different devices.

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The bit

  • The smallest unit of data that we can store is called a binary digit, or a bit for short.
  • The value of a bit can be either a 0 or a 1.
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Grouping bits

  • Because a bit is so small, we do not usually use it to measure data.
  • Instead, we group bits into larger groups such as:
    • Nibble (4 bits).
    • Byte (8 bits).
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Common data units

  • In reality, we need much larger groups than this to compare modern storage devices.
  • Common units are:
    • Kilobyte (KB) (1024 bytes).
    • Megabyte (MB) (1024 KB).
    • Gigabyte (GB) (1024 MB).
    • Terabyte (TB) (1024 GB).

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1Problem Solving

2Programming

3Data

4Computers

5Communication & The Internet

6The Bigger Picture

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