Terabyte

Multiples of bytes
SI prefix				Binary prefixes
Name	Symbol	Multiple		Name	Symbol	Multiple
kilobyte	kB	103 (or 210)		kibibyte	KiB	210
megabyte	MB	106 (or 220)		mebibyte	MiB	220
gigabyte	GB	109 (or 230)		gibibyte	GiB	230
terabyte	TB	1012 (or 240)		tebibyte	TiB	240
petabyte	PB	1015 (or 250)		pebibyte	PiB	250
exabyte	EB	1018 (or 260)		exbibyte	EiB	260
zettabyte	ZB	1021 (or 270)
yottabyte	YB	1024 (or 280)

A terabyte (derived from the SI prefix tera-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one trillion (one long scale billion) bytes. It is commonly abbreviated TB.

Because of irregularities in using the binary prefix in the definition and usage of the kilobyte, the exact number in common practice could be either one of the following:

1. 1 000 000 000 000 bytes - 1000⁴ or 10¹².
2. 1 099 511 627 776 bytes - 1024⁴ or 2⁴⁰. This capacity may be expressed unambiguously as a tebibyte.

The prefix "tera" originates from the Greek word teras meaning 'monster'.

Terabytes in use

• A 'typical' video store may contain about 8 terabytes of video data.
• The books in the the U.S. Library of Congress contain approximately 20 terabytes of text.

Personal computers containing a terabyte or more of storage space have recently become possible using combinations of high-capacity mass-market hard drives. As of April 2005, common commercial hard drives exceeded 400 gigabytes in size, so storage capacity totalling a terabyte or more can be reached using as few as 2 or 3 hard disks, at a street cost of as little as USD $450, down from over USD $1000 in 2003. (source: www.newegg.com)

Terabyte is also the name of a Macromedia Flash web design company. Terabyte is based in Auckland, New Zealand.

See also

• tebibyte
• terabit
• binary prefix
• orders of magnitude (data)

Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.

Submit a Site - Open Directory Project - Become an Editor