Computer storage or also called data storage or memory is a technology or device used for maintaining, organizing and managing digital data. The information can be stored both temporarily and permanently. Being a basic computer function and component, its performance is crucial for a computer to operate. measured in bytes, kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB) and increasingly terabytes (TB) and also bits, kilobits, megabits, gigabits and so on. Common measurement: 1 byte is one character of data and equals 8 bits, 1 megabit is equal to 125 kilobytes. The megabit’s utilization refers to data transfer of computer networks. It is commonly used in network transfer rates and download speeds as the size transferred per time unit. Technically a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, a megabyte 1024 kilobytes, and 1,024,768 bytes, but practically it is often simplified and said to be 1 000 000 for facilitation.
Computer storage as a device is available in several forms in sort of a hierarchy: CPU, primary storage/memory, secondary storage, offline storage. The CPU or Central Processing Unit or simply processor – it is a computer component which interprets and performs commands to manipulate data. The primary storage is storing information for immediate use and is directly accessible to the CPU. This is called RAM (Random-Access Memory) and cache memory. The secondary storage (or mass storage) can be internal or external and is used for permanent storage, used for large amounts of data and is not directly accessible by the CPU, it includes the hard disk optical disk drive and USB storage device, memory cards, solid state drives. The offline storage is a medium or a device that can be removed from a computer as it does not need the control of a processing unit. It is used to stare and transfer information. It cannot be accessed without human intervention.
| Bytes | Bits | Gigabytes | Kilobytes | Megabytes | Megabits | Petabytes | Terabytes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Byte = | 1 | 8 | 1 x 10-9 | 0.001 | 1 x 10-6 | 8 x 10-6 | 1 x 10-15 | 1 x 10-12 |
| 1 Bit = | 0.125 | 1 | 1.25 x 10-10 | 0.000125 | 1.25 x 10-7 | 1 x 10-6 | 1.25 x 10-16 | 1.25 x 10-13 |
| 1 Gigabyte = | 1000000000 | 8000000000 | 1 | 1000000 | 1000 | 8000 | 1 x 10-6 | 0.001 |
| 1 Kilobyte = | 1000 | 8000 | 1 x 10-6 | 1 | 0.001 | 0.008 | 1 x 10-12 | 1 x 10-9 |
| 1 Megabyte = | 1000000 | 8000000 | 0.001 | 1000 | 1 | 8 | 1 x 10-9 | 1 x 10-6 |
| 1 Megabit = | 125000 | 1000000 | 0.000125 | 125 | 0.125 | 1 | 1.25 x 10-10 | 1.25 x 10-7 |
| 1 Petabyte = | 1 x 1015 | 8 x 1015 | 1000000 | 1 x 1012 | 1000000000 | 8000000000 | 1 | 1000 |
| 1 Terabyte = | 1 x 1012 | 8 x 1012 | 1000 | 1000000000 | 1000000 | 8000000 | 0.001 | 1 |
