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The byte has been a commonly used unit of measure for much of the information age to refer to a number of bits.In the early days of computing, it was used for differing numbers of bits based on convention and computer hardware design, but today means 8 bits.
The internationally recommended unit symbol for the kilobyte is kB. [ 1 ] In some areas of information technology , particularly in reference to random-access memory capacity, kilobyte instead typically refers to 1024 (2 10 ) bytes.
Units are defined as multiples of a smaller unit except for the smallest unit which is based on convention and hardware design. Multiplier prefixes are used to describe relatively large sizes. For binary hardware , by far the most common hardware today, the smallest unit is the bit , a portmanteau of binary digit, [ 1 ] which represents a value ...
Due to typical file system design, the amount of space allocated for a file is usually larger than the size of the file's data – resulting in a relatively small amount of storage space for each file, called slack space or internal fragmentation, that is not available for other files but is not used for data in the file to which it belongs. [2]
However, the names of all SI mass units are based on gram, rather than on kilogram; thus 10 3 kg is a megagram (10 6 g), not a *kilokilogram. The tonne (t) is an SI-compatible unit of mass equal to a megagram (Mg), or 10 3 kg. The unit is in common use for masses above about 10 3 kg and is often used with SI prefixes.
The early 8-inch diskette formats could contain less than a megabyte with the capacities of those devices specified in kilobytes, kilobits or megabits. [ 38 ] [ 39 ] The 5.25-inch diskette sold with the IBM PC AT could hold 1200 × 1024 = 1 228 800 bytes, and thus was marketed as "1200 KB" with the binary sense of "KB". [ 40 ]
In programming languages such as C, a bitwise operation operates on binary strings as though they are vectors of bits, rather than interpreting them as binary numbers. Data transfer rates are usually measured in decimal SI multiples. For example, a channel capacity may be specified as 8 kbit/s = 8 kb/s = 1 kB/s.
The units kilogram, gram, milligram, microgram, and smaller are commonly used for measurement of mass. However, megagram, gigagram, and larger are rarely used; tonnes (and kilotonnes, megatonnes, etc.) or scientific notation are used instead. The megagram does not share the risk of confusion that the tonne has with other units with the name "ton".