Units of Digital Information
Computing and telecommunication systems use units of information to measure storage and communication capacity.
Bit,Nibble and Byte are the fundamental digital data units. The larger units, multiples of bits and bytes, are further categorized as Binary and Decimal units.
Decimal units are defined by SI(International System of Units), use Metric prefixes such as kilo, mega etc. Decimal units are multiples of 1000. Binary units are comparatively newer,
defined by IEC(International Electro technical Commission), prefixed with kibi, mebi etc. evaluated as multiples of 1024. You can find further details on each units below.
Digital Data Storage Measurement Units in Order : Smallest to Largest
Bit (b) is the smallest unit to measure digital data, whereas Byte is commonly used as the
smallest addressable unit of storage in many computer systems. A Nibble can be formed by grouping 4 bits, can have up to 16 values.
Comparison between Decimal (SI Standard) and Binary (IEC Standard) units.
Decimal and Binary Bit Units
Decimal Unit |
Equivalent in Bits |
Binary Unit |
Equivalent in Bits |
Kilobit | 1,000 | Kibibit | 1,024 |
Megabit | 1,000,000 | Mebibit | 1,048,576 |
Gigabit | 1,000,000,000 | Gibibit | 1,073,741,824 |
Terabit | 1,000,000,000,000 | Tebibit | 1,099,511,627,776 |
Petabit | 1,000,000,000,000,000 | Pebibit | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
Exabit | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Exbibit | 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 |
Zettabit | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Zebibit | 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 |
Yottabit | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Yobibit | 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 |
Decimal and Binary Byte Units
Decimal Unit |
Equivalent in Bytes |
Binary Unit |
Equivalent in Bytes |
Kilobyte | 1,000 | Kibibyte | 1,024 |
Megabyte | 1,000,000 | Mebibyte | 1,048,576 |
Gigabyte | 1,000,000,000 | Gibibyte | 1,073,741,824 |
Terabyte | 1,000,000,000,000 | Tebibyte | 1,099,511,627,776 |
Petabyte | 1,000,000,000,000,000 | Pebibyte | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
Exabyte | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Exbibyte | 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 |
Zettabyte | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Zebibyte | 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 |
Yottabyte | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Yobibyte | 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 |
Relationship between different Data Measurement Units
Following are the popular Digital Data Units defined by
International Electro technical Commission(IEC) and
International System of Units(SI).
All the conversion logic used in this website align with these standards.
Each Decimal unit (kb, kB, Mb, MB, Gb, GB, Tb, TB, Pb, PB, Eb, EB, Zb, ZB, Yb, YB) is 1000 times larger than its preceding unit, whereas each Binary unit(Kibit, KiB, Mibit, MiB, Gibit, GiB, Tibit, TiB, Pibit, PiB, Eibit, EiB, Zibit, ZiB, Yibit, YiB) is 1024 times larger than the preceding unit.
Below table represents how these units are related to each other.