mega(byte) - giga(byte)

[ophiuchus]

Hi,

is it possible to say This hard disk has ten giga or This takes up 3 mega or is it necessary to use the full word gigabyte and megabyte?

Thanks

 

[Route21]

Hi ophiuchus

As a NES, but not a teacher, I would personally use 10 Gig or 5 Meg as the short forms for 10Gb & 5Mb respectively.

Others may respond differently.

Hope this helps.
R21

 

[allenman]

I agree with Route21. "Gig", "Gigs", "Meg", "Megs" all are heard. Never "giga" or "mega" without saying "byte".

Of course, "tera" is quite popular in reference to hard disk size...

Not a teacher

 

[Raymott]

Be careful with capitalisation. M = Mega; m = milli; B = Byte; b = bit
MB - Megabyte
GB - Gigbyte
Mbps - megabits per sec.
mB - millibytes
mb - millibits


New IEC Standard
bit bit 0 or 1
byte B 8 bits
kibibit Kibit 1024 bits
kilobit kbit 1000 bits
kibibyte (binary) KiB 1024 bytes
kilobyte (decimal) kB 1000 bytes
megabit Mbit 1000 kilobits
mebibyte (binary) MiB 1024 kibibytes
megabyte (decimal) MB 1000 kilobytes
gigabit Gbit 1000 megabits
gibibyte (binary) GiB 1024 mebibytes
gigabyte (decimal) GB 1000 megabytes
terabit Tbit 1000 gigabits
tebibyte (binary) TiB 1024 gibibytes
terabyte (decimal) TB 1000 gigabytes
petabit Pbit 1000 terabits
pebibyte (binary) PiB 1024 tebibytes
petabyte (decimal) PB 1000 terabytes
exabit Ebit 1000 petabits
exbibyte (binary) EiB 1024 pebibytes
exabyte (decimal) EB 1000 petabytes
Conversion Calculator Bit Byte Kilobyte Megabyte Gigabyte Terabyte Petabyte Exabyte

 

[Route21]

Hi Raymott

Many thanks for sharing the new system - I'd no idea it was coming! When does it come into effect, if it hasn't already!

Will suppliers have to quote sizes in both terms for a lengthy period of time whilst people get used to it?

I suspect it will leave many people, expecially those on sites like this who may be struggling with English already, extremely confused and they will stick to the old nomenclature!

Best regards
R21

 

[ophiuchus]

Thank you everyone!!
:-D

 

[Raymott]

Hi Raymott

Many thanks for sharing the new system - I'd no idea it was coming! When does it come into effect, if it hasn't already!

Will suppliers have to quote sizes in both terms for a lengthy period of time whilst people get used to it?

I suspect it will leave many people, expecially those on sites like this who may be struggling with English already, extremely confused and they will stick to the old nomenclature!

Best regards
R21

I don't know. I just copied the page. The main point was that, even if you see Mb in ads for computers, the proper term has always been MB.

I guess in popular usage, kilobyte is always going to mean 1000 bytes or 1024 (2^10) bytes depending on the context. Same with the others. This is only important in specialised areas in the IT field where you really need to know if 1000 or 1024 is meant. When I was studying IT about 8 years ago, these terms were around, but we never used to talk about 'kibibytes', etc, unless we were being pretentious or pedantic. And I'd never do that! ;-)

 

[SoothingDave]

Giving it a dumb name doesn't help. I think something like "commercial" or "consumer" versus "mathematical" would be a useful adjective for kilobyte when a distinction would need to be named.