Amateur IT 
MB (megabyte), GB (gigabyte). These are units called “byte” that we often see in the computer world.
What do these represent?
Contents
What is “byte”?
Byte is a unit that represents the amount of data in a computer.
It is used for PC storage and smartphone data traffic.
In the computer world, all information is represented in binary (0 or 1). This is because power off is considered as 0 and power on is considered as 1. Based on this idea, the notation of each unit changes every 1024 times (210 times).
It is also represented in decimal number, which is easier for the human eye to understand. In this case, there is a difference between the represented number and the actual value.
To distinguish between the two, a special prefix for binary number is defined, but it is not often used.
Below is a list of units.
| Unit | Value（decimal number） | Unit（binary prefix） | Value（binary number） |
|---|---|---|---|
| KB（kilobyte） | 103 | KiB（kibibyte） | 210 |
| MB（megabyte） | 106 | MiB（mebibyte） | 220 |
| GB（gigabyte） | 109 | GiB（gibibyte） | 230 |
| TB（terabyte） | 1012 | TiB（tebibyte） | 240 |
| PB（petabyte） | 1015 | PiB（pebibyte） | 250 |
1 byte is equivalent to half-width character, and 2 bytes is equivalent to full-width character.
Conclusion
- Byte is a unit that represents the amount of data in a computer.
- It can be represented in binary number and decimal number.
- 1 byte is equivalent to half-width character, and 2 bytes is equivalent to full-width character.