MS Technology Vocabulary Gigabyte

Andrew Warden

January 2009

Computer 7-5

Gigabyte

A measure of Storage Capacity in a computer equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes, 1,000,000 kilobytes, or 1,000 megabytes.It is the main measurement for computers today. They started being used in computers in 1990's when memory storage devices became large enough for gigiabytes. Common abbreviations are GB and Gbyte

Actual size

Gigabytes are used to measure the size of the hard drive, the ram, and the size of a file. The commercial use of a gigabyte is actually just over 93% of the true value of a gigabyte. So if a computer is advertised with 300 Gigabytes then it really has 279 gigabytes, and the larger the drive the bigger difference between the advertised memory and the actual memory.

Confusion

Often confused with gigabits which are the data transfer rate. Abbreviated Gb. Also confused with gigahertz which is the proccessing speed. Abbreviated GHz.

Prefixes

Giga refers to 1,000 megas

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