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Data Volumes: The volume of data in a single file or file system can be described by a unit called a byte. However, data volumes can become very large when dealing with Earth satellite data. Below is a table to explain data volume units (credit Roy Williams, Center for Advanced Computing Research at the California Institute of Technology).
- Kilo- means 1,000; a Kilobyte is one thousand bytes.
- Mega- means 1,000,000; a Megabyte is a million bytes.
- Giga- means 1,000,000,000; a Gigabyte is a billion bytes.
- Tera- means 1,000,000,000,000; a Terabyte is a trillion bytes.
- Peta- means 1,000,000,000,000,000; a Petabyte is 1,000 Terabytes.
- Exa- means 1,000,000,000,000,000,000; an Exabyte is 1,000 Petabytes.
- Zetta- means 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000; a Zettabyte is 1,000 Exabytes.
- Yotta- means 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000; a Yottabyte is 1,000 Zettabytes.
Examples of Data Volumes
| Unit | Value | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Kilobytes (KB) | 1,000 bytes | a paragraph of a text document |
| Megabytes (MB) | 1,000 Kilobytes | a small novel |
| Gigabytes (GB) | 1,000 Megabytes | Beethoven’s 5th Symphony |
| Terabytes (TB) | 1,000 Gigabytes | all the X-rays in a large hospital |
| Petabytes (PB) | 1,000 Terabytes | half the contents of all US academic research libraries |
| Exabytes (EB) | 1,000 Petabytes | about one fifth of the words people have ever spoken |
| Zettabytes (ZB) | 1,000 Exabytes | as much information as there are grains of sand on all the world’s beaches |
| Yottabytes (YB) | 1,000 Zettabytes | as much information as there are atoms in 7,000 human bodies |
