There are two types of data; active and storage. Transferring data is applicable to storage data, so that’s what I’ll run with. A bit is a basic unit of digital information. A byte is 8 bits. All digital information consists of bits, and bytes.
A kilobyte is 1024 bytes. Most Microsoft Word documents are around 27kb, or 27,648 bytes or 221,184 bits; all that for one small document. Bigger documents and files take up more space obviously. The same applies to image files.
A megabyte is 1,024,000 bytes, or 1,000 kilobytes. Most music files are in megabytes, especially mp3 codings. A normal 3 minute song is around three and a half megabytes, so 3.5 million bytes.
A gigabyte is 1,024,000,000 bytes, or 1,000 megabytes. Games and videos tend to fall into the gigabyte category because of their huge graphic and processing demands.
A terabyte is 1,024,000,000,000 bytes or 1,000 gigabytes. This is some serious storage capacity and generally is only just becoming available for the top end computers on the market. Most people will not need anywhere near this much space for storing information.
All this data transfer is dependent though; on your Internet speed and your provider, as well as your connection. Wireless can be intermittent, so if it’s not reliable then use Ethernet to guarantee a strong connection. Your provider might not give you unlimited download/upload capabilities, so you need to make sure you have enough space for the transfer if you do. If your speed is too slow, say 500kbps, then your transfer of data to or from you will take a long time in comparison to say 5mbps.
A kilobyte is 1024 bytes. Most Microsoft Word documents are around 27kb, or 27,648 bytes or 221,184 bits; all that for one small document. Bigger documents and files take up more space obviously. The same applies to image files.
A megabyte is 1,024,000 bytes, or 1,000 kilobytes. Most music files are in megabytes, especially mp3 codings. A normal 3 minute song is around three and a half megabytes, so 3.5 million bytes.
A gigabyte is 1,024,000,000 bytes, or 1,000 megabytes. Games and videos tend to fall into the gigabyte category because of their huge graphic and processing demands.
A terabyte is 1,024,000,000,000 bytes or 1,000 gigabytes. This is some serious storage capacity and generally is only just becoming available for the top end computers on the market. Most people will not need anywhere near this much space for storing information.
All this data transfer is dependent though; on your Internet speed and your provider, as well as your connection. Wireless can be intermittent, so if it’s not reliable then use Ethernet to guarantee a strong connection. Your provider might not give you unlimited download/upload capabilities, so you need to make sure you have enough space for the transfer if you do. If your speed is too slow, say 500kbps, then your transfer of data to or from you will take a long time in comparison to say 5mbps.
