Pixel Lava Interactive
  • Home
  • Websites
    • New Websites
    • Website Redesigns
    • Website Portfolio
    • Website Tune Ups
    • Website Updates  🔸
      • Easy Online Payments
  • Marketing
    • Virtual Tours
    • Video & Motion Graphics
    • Logo design and brand identity
    • Business Cards
    • Postcards, flyers, ads and more
    • Illustration & Infographics
  • Training
    • Weebly Training
    • Digital Summer Camp
  • About
    • Blog
    • Client List
    • Good Vibes
    • Review Me
    • Recommendations
    • Adventure Indoor Fitness
    • Remembering Mary
  • Mondo Bop
  • Contact
    • Support

Field Notes Blog

News and thoughts on UI/UX, web design, and more.

​Digital Summer Camp 08: The Language of File Sizes

8/29/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Gigs, megs, kilobytes, megapixels…omg, wth? If you’ve ever gone to upload a file and been shocked by how long it’s taking then never fear! Today’s episode is all about file sizes. I’ll cover all of the common ones, a few exotic ones and even reveal the name of one you might use every day without knowing what it actually means!

A post shared by Ame Stanko (@pixellava) on Aug 29, 2018 at 2:44pm PDT

  • KBs and MBs and GBs
    KB stands for kilobytes and while kilo means 1000, there are actually 1024* KBs in a megabyte. If you’re old enough to remember the 90’s, the last version of floppy disks were around 700 KB (anyone remember the two sided ones you could flip over?!)
  • MB stands for megabyte and there are 1024 MBs in a Gigabyte. With more powerful computers, bigger hard drives and faster internet, MBs are now the most common file size unit.
  • GB stands for gigabyte and at 1024 GBs in a terabyte. A downloaded movie is usually many GBs and video on your smart phone can quickly fill up your memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
  • TB = 1024 GBs TBs in a PB. A terabyte of video is uploaded to YouTube every four minutes.
  • PB = petabyte and there are 1024 PB in an EB (not to be confused with a petaflop, which is is a value of Floating Point Operations per Second). The CERN Large Hadron Collider generates 1 petabyte per second.
  • EB = Exabyte and there are 1024 in a ZB. The proposed Square Kilometer Array telescope will generate an exabyte of data per day. (https://gigaom.com/2012/10/30/as-data-gets-bigger-what-comes-after-a-yottabyte/)
 
ZBs, YBs, BBs and more = ZB stands for zettabyte and there are 1024 in a YB or yottabyte. What comes after that? Brontobytes are 1027 and gegobytes are 1030 but the mother of them all is the googol. That’s right, Google is named after the googol, aka googolplex, which is 10100. That might sound tidy, but famed astronomer Carl Sagan estimated that “writing a googolplex in full decimal form (i.e., "10,000,000,000...") would be physically impossible, since doing so would require more space than is available in the known universe.” 

Where to use:
KB: website images are usually 500-1000 kilobyte. As a comparison, a typical Word doc is around 200k. These are fine for emailing.
MB: A typical pdf file or mp3 is around 3 MBs. This can be readily emailed, but most email programs will force you to use some other method of sending like Google Drive or DropBox for files over 30 mbs.
GB: No emailing here, files this big need to be sent using services like DropBox or provided on a Flash drive.
TB: you might have a back up hard drive that’s a few TBs but you’ll likely not work with files this size (at least for the time being!).
 
*Why 1024 instead of simply 1000? Decimals are based on powers of 10 whereas binary numbers are based on the base 2 (binary = 2). The notion of using kilo for 1024 is a compromise between the literal decimal meaning which is widely understood linguistically and the mathematical definition.

That's it for my 8 Week Digital Summer Camp online learning series! I hope you've enjoyed watching these little videos as much as I've enjoyed making them. To get cool future videos like this delivered straight to your In Box, join my mailing list.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Blog

    Ame Stanko, San Diego Web Designer

    About the author

    As the owner of Pixel Lava Interactive I've helped hundreds of small businesses and nonprofits with websites, graphic design and more. I hope you'll find this blog full of useful information.
    ~ Ame Stanko
    Mailing List Sign Up
    Subscribe

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Announcements
    Bop Squad
    Community
    Digital Summer Camp
    DIY
    DIY Marketing
    Email Marketing
    Featured Projects
    For Nonprofits
    Fun Stuff
    Happy Holidays
    How Tos
    HTML Is Not So Scary
    Industry Musings
    Interwebs 101
    LGBT Business
    Marketing Ideas
    Monday Motivation
    Mondo Bop
    New Products
    Newsletters
    Nonprofit Marketing
    Online Marketing
    Partner Program
    Pixel Lava Unplugged
    Product Updates
    Promo Ideas
    Reviews
    Scam Alerts
    Small Business Inspiration
    Small Business Marketing
    Social Media Marketing
    Tips & Tricks
    Training
    UI/UX
    Webinars
    Web Labs
    Website Workshops

    Archives

    November 2023
    February 2023
    June 2021
    September 2020
    August 2020
    December 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    July 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    September 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    October 2011
    February 2011
    December 2010
    October 2010
    December 2009
    October 2009
    February 2009
    December 2008
    December 2007
    December 2006
    December 2005

Home  |  Websites  |  Graphic Design  |  Marketing  |  Training  |  About  |  Shop  |  Contact

©2005-2019 Pixel Lava Interactive. All rights reserved. 🚀

  • Home
  • Websites
    • New Websites
    • Website Redesigns
    • Website Portfolio
    • Website Tune Ups
    • Website Updates  🔸
      • Easy Online Payments
  • Marketing
    • Virtual Tours
    • Video & Motion Graphics
    • Logo design and brand identity
    • Business Cards
    • Postcards, flyers, ads and more
    • Illustration & Infographics
  • Training
    • Weebly Training
    • Digital Summer Camp
  • About
    • Blog
    • Client List
    • Good Vibes
    • Review Me
    • Recommendations
    • Adventure Indoor Fitness
    • Remembering Mary
  • Mondo Bop
  • Contact
    • Support