Digital Storage – Units of Measure
Actually it’s very simple… but you are probably right it can be confusing if you are not in the know, but this information is important to know if you want to buy storage for your collections.
Computers don’t count like we do, they double the previous factor; yes it’s a bit much to take into account but you need to understand that; eg 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024. Technically the measure of 1KB should be 1024 Bytes and so forth, but the unit of measure was simplified to save confusion.
Table of measure for computers, everything is measured in ‘bytes’
Measure Abbr. Actual measure
1 Byte 1B 8 Bits
1 KiloByte 1KB 1000 Bytes
1 MegaByte 1MB 1000 KiloBytes
1 GigaByte 1GB 1000 MegaBytes
1 TeraByte 1TB 1000 GigaBytes
There is a level below 1 Byte, it is 1 ‘Bit’ 8 Bits make a Byte, and this doesn’t stop there, extract from solutionsreview.com
Bits are the basic building blocks of not only data storage, but all computers. Computers work in binary digits, combining 0’s and 1’s in countless patterns. These binary digits are known as bits, and are the smallest possible unit for data storage.
When 8 bits are combined, you get a byte. Bytes are used to store a single character; whether’s it a letter, number, or punctuation. All memory storage is expressed in terms of bytes, so although bits might be the foundation upon which data storage is built, bytes are the building blocks that truly denote the usability of any one storage solution.
Because storage is expressed in terms of bytes, all greater units are typically referred to by their shortened names. This means that you could keep adding more prefixes to talk about more and more data. Above terabyte, we have petabyte (PB), exabyte (EB), zettabyte (ZB), and yottabyte (YB). Once the numbers get high enough, it can be difficult to realistically visualize how much data we’re talking about. This volume of data is really only relevant to tech giants and massive corporations. But as the need for greater storage increases with the volume of data over time, we will inevitably develop the necessary vocabulary.
We hope this helps you understand the storage ladder, just for comparison below you can see what some of your common products are in size, and you can work out what storage needs you require based on that:
SVG cutting files and associated vector files depending on complexity
5 to 200kb
Simple word document, like a short letter or invoice without graphics
25kb to 100 kb
Picture files (jpeg, jpg, png) depending on size and resolution of images
from around 50kb to 10 mb
Portable Document Format, (pdf) once again depending on imagery and layers
around 1mb - 20mb
USB crafting Collection/Digital crafting download depending on content
from 1gb to 5gb
Please do remember the above is pretty generic, and your individual files may be much larger or smaller depending on the purpose and the graphic intensity.
All in all this is handy to remember for situation where you need to email a file, or transport a lot of photographs. It is always advisable to compress, or zip, a large amount of files, or large sized files, for ease of transportation or transmission, and then decompress, or unzip, at the other end.
When emailing a larger file, you will likely find that your email provider or email client may have an upper limit of size, perhaps around 20mb. In any situation where you may find you need to transport/transmit these larger files, consider using a free file transfer site, such as WeTransfer, or if it is local, simple pop the data on to a thumb USB drive.
