Read our guide to help you figure out how many megabytes are in a gigabyte. Our article will cover everything from bytes right through to yottabytes and much more…
This article will tell you all about the old and new storage space capacity terms.
You can find out how to calculate storage space and why a kilobyte can be equal to 1,000 or 1,024 bytes.
You’ll learn all about bits and quettabytes, and everything in between.
How to Calculate Storage Space?
There are two ways to calculate storage space capacities, namely the one used by the International System of Units and the binary interpretation.
The International System of Units indicates that since the word kilobyte starts with “kilo,” which means 1,000, one kilobyte is going to be 1,000 bytes. Therefore, all the other units will be calculated in Base 10. One megabyte is going to be 1,000 kilobytes, one gigabyte is equal to 1,000 megabytes, and so on.
However, the binary interpretation calculates data storage in Base 2, so a kilobyte is equal to 1,024 bytes. 1,024 is the power of 2 that is closest to 1,000.
This difference can be confusing when you are looking at storage capacities. For example, a hard drive that is advertised as having a capacity of 1 terabyte (TB) in decimal actually has a capacity of 1,099,511,627,776 bytes in binary.
To avoid confusion, it is important to be aware of the difference between the decimal and binary systems when it comes to storage space. When you are looking at storage capacities, always make sure to check the units that are being used.
Ultimately, however, when we’re dealing with large storage space units, it’s not going to matter that much.
For the purpose of this article, we’re going to use the binary system, so instead of a ton of zeroes, you’ll see a LOT of numbers.
What Are Bits and Bytes?
Bits and bytes are the very foundation of digital life, providing the essential language used to express all forms of data. Every single character you type on your computer or smartphone uses a combination of bits and bytes – from text messages to emails, images, videos – it’s estimated that more than 90% of our lives exist in some form of these two building blocks!
Information technology is built on bits and bytes. A bit is also named a “shannon,” after Claude Shannon, a computer scientist and cryptographer who is known as the “father of information theory. A bit has one specific value out of two possible – either ‘1’ or ‘0’. Although these are the most common values used to represent a logical state while communicating digitally; other denominations such as true/false, yes/no can also be seen at times. Don’t get confused between its symbol, a lowercase “b” for bit and an uppercase “B” which stands for byte!
Also, for cuteness’ sake, you should know that 4 bits are called a nibble. One nibble is half a byte.
How Many Bits in a Byte?
There are 8 bits in a byte. Each byte consists of 8 individually coded bits working together as one unit; each code conveying something unique unto itself. From 0-9 and letters A-Z to images and sounds (and beyond), this powerful duo is programmed into every device we own so no matter where you go technology has always got your back!
How Many Bytes in Kilobyte (KB)?
There are 1,024 bytes in a kilobyte. Whether you’re storing a single song on your device or saving hundreds of photos, it’s all measured in kilobytes. For many techies and everyday computer users alike the word ‘byte’ might be more familiar than its larger cousin – the kilobyte (or kB).
A byte may seem small but when multiplied by 1024 (2 to the power of 10) we have ourselves a KB! International System Units uses this prefix as 1000, meaning one KB holds an impressive amount: namely 1000 bytes which puts into perspective just how much data they can store.
When discussing digital information size, however, one kilobyte is a relatively small unit. If you were wondering, an email message has around 1KB of data.
| Value | Bytes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Kilobyte | 1024 | 1,024 |
| 1 Megabyte | 1024^2 | 1,048,576 |
| 1 Gigabyte | 1024^3 | 1,073,741,824 |
| 1 Terabyte | 1024^4 | 1,099,511,627,776 |
| 1 Petabyte | 1024^5 | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
| 1 Exabyte | 1024^6 | 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 |
| 1 Zettabyte | 1024^7 | 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 |
| 1 Yottabyte | 1024^8 | 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 |
| 1 Ronnabyte | 1024^9 | |
| 1 Quettabyte | 1024^10 |
How Many Kilobytes (KB) in a Megabyte (MB)?
There are 1,024 kilobytes (KB) in a megabyte (MB). At the same time, it’s also equal to 1,048,576 bytes (or 2 to the power of 20) and some 200,000 nibbles.
While we don’t regularly use bits, bytes, and kilobytes much these days, we still frequently encounter megabytes. As an example, when downloading music to your phone, a regular-quality song has about 3MB. Another frequent use of the “mega” prefix is when we measure the speed of data transfers, although it then transforms into megabits per second.
| Value | Kilobytes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Megabyte | 1024 | 1,024 |
| 1 Gigabyte | 1024^2 | 1,048,576 |
| 1 Terabyte | 1024^3 | 1,073,741,824 |
| 1 Petabyte | 1024^4 | 1,099,511,627,776 |
| 1 Exabyte | 1024^5 | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
| 1 Zettabyte | 1024^6 | 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 |
| 1 Yottabyte | 1024^7 | 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 |
| 1 Ronnabyte | 1024^8 | 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 |
| 1 Quettabyte | 1024^9 |
How Many Bytes in a Megabyte?
There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte. This is because a megabyte is equal to 2 to the power of 20, or 1024 to the power of 2. This means that a megabyte is equal to 1,024 kilobytes, or 1024 * 1024 bytes.
How Many Megabytes (MB) in a Gigabyte (GB)?
A gigabyte packs a massive 1,024 megabytes of power! That’s because one gigabyte contains 1024 * 1024 kilobytes. It’s even more massive when you want to count the individual byes, coming up to over a billion of them.
For instance, a DVD movie – if you’re still using those – measures about 4.7GB in size. Of course, gigabytes are perhaps the most commonly encountered these days, because it’s GB that we measure storage options for smartphones, computers, portable hard drives, and so on.
| Value | Megabytes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Gigabyte | 1024 | 1,024 |
| 1 Terabyte | 1024^2 | 1,048,576 |
| 1 Petabyte | 1024^3 | 1,073,741,824 |
| 1 Exabyte | 1024^4 | 1,099,511,627,776 |
| 1 Zettabyte | 1024^5 | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
| 1 Yottabyte | 1024^6 | 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 |
| 1 Ronnabyte | 1024^7 | 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 |
| 1 Quettabyte | 1024^8 | 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 |
How Many Bytes in a Gigabyte?
If you want exact numbers, that’s 1,073,741,824 bytes in a gigabyte. You’ll need to break out the calculator to do the math for this one, but a gigabyte contains a mind-boggling 1.07 billion bytes of data – and it’s not hard to see why!
With each megabyte having 1,024 kilobytes, and every kilobyte containing yet another 1,024 bytes, you end up with an incredible total of 2^30 (or 1024 cubed) for one impressive GB.
How Many Gigabytes (GB) in a Terabyte (TB)?
A terabyte equates to 1024 GB – that’s over 1 trillion bytes! To put this in perspective, it is estimated that a Word document would need to have nearly 86 million pages to reach one terabyte in size. Now that’s a LOT of information.
Nowadays, you can choose hard drives of 1 or more terabytes, but they cost a pretty penny. These drives are most common in NVRs and servers where massive storage space is required.
| Value | Gigabytes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Terabyte | 1024 | 1,024 |
| 1 Petabyte | 1024^2 | 1,048,576 |
| 1 Exabyte | 1024^3 | 1,073,741,824 |
| 1 Zettabyte | 1024^4 | 1,099,511,627,776 |
| 1 Yottabyte | 1024^5 | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
| 1 Ronnabyte | 1024^6 | 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 |
| 1 Quettabyte | 1024^7 | 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 |
How Big is a Terabyte (TB)?
A terabyte is a whole lot of information! Just one TB holds an incredible amount – enough to store 500 hours’ worth of high-quality video, 300 thousand digital snaps, and even 17,000 thousand hours of songs.
And those are just the top examples; it’s estimated that around 250K text documents could be saved on 1TB too. As storage capabilities become increasingly more cost-effective these days, terabytes have become commonplace for many devices like hard drives or solid-state ones as well. So if you’re looking for some serious data capacity in your life – look no further than a good old TB!
How Many Bytes in a Terabyte?
There are 1,099,511,627,776 bytes in a terabyte. That’s one trillion, 99 billion, and so on. Or as most of us like to say… “a lot.”
This is because a terabyte is equal to 2 to the power of 40, or 1024 to the power of 4. This means that a terabyte is equal to 1024 gigabytes, or 1024 * 1024 megabytes, or 1024 * 1024 * 1024 kilobytes, or 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes.
How Many Gigabytes (GB) in a Terabyte (TB) and How Many 128GB iPhones is This?
There are 1,024 gigabytes in a terabyte. We’re having a bit of fun here and pulling out the calculator to satisfy a curiosity – just how many 128GB iPhones could fit in a terabyte. Given the size of the terabyte, you’re going to need eight of those iPhones to fill a terabyte. Talking of which, know that not all 128GB will be available to use, even if you wipe your iPhone clean.
| 1 Terabyte | |
|---|---|
| iPhones with 128GB of Storage | 8 |
| iPhones with 256GB of Storage | 4 |
| iPhones with 512GB of Storage | 2 |
| iPhones with 1TB of Storage | 1 |
What Comes After Terabyte?
Although Terabytes may sound absolutely massive to the regular human, there are loads more units of measure after it. We have petabytes, exabytes, zettabytes, and so on. But let’s take them one at a time.
How Many Terabytes (TB) in a Petabyte (PB)?
A petabyte is an impressive measure of data storage—that’s 1,024 terabytes (TB) or over a million gigabytes! It amounts to so much information that businesses and organizations often use it as the benchmark when storing large datasets in their data centers. In short, if you’ve got lots of info to store away safe and sound – go with a petabyte.
It is hard to estimate when exactly humanity reached 1PB of digitally stored data, but it must have happened sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s. This milestone signified that our collective stockpile of knowledge was growing exponentially and is still increasing to this day!
| Value | Terabytes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Petabyte | 1024 | 1,024 |
| 1 Exabyte | 1024^2 | 1,048,576 |
| 1 Zettabyte | 1024^3 | 1,073,741,824 |
| 1 Yottabyte | 1024^4 | 1,099,511,627,776 |
| 1 Ronnabyte | 1024^5 | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
| 1 Quettabyte | 1024^6 | 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 |
How Big Is a Petabyte (PB)?
It’s highly unlikely that any given individual has a petabyte of data. Why? Because that’s an absolutely massive amount of data. That’s equivalent to about 500,000 hours of high-definition video, 300 billion photos, and even more – about 17,000 years of music.
As we said, unlikely that any one individual has this absurd amount of data. Companies? Sure. Cloud storage services? Quite likely.
How Many Bytes in a Petabyte?
There are 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes in a petabyte. That’s one quadrillion and change. This is equal to 1024 terabytes, or 1,048,576 gigabytes, or 1,073,741,824 megabytes.
A petabyte is a very large amount of data. It is equivalent to the amount of data that would be stored in 240 million DVDs, or some 750 million ebooks.
How Many Gigabytes (GB) in a Petabyte (PB) and How Many 128GB iPhones Is This?
There are 1,048,576 gigabytes in a petabyte. If you want to have some fun, know that 8,192 128GB iPhones can fit into one petabyte.
| 1 Petabyte | |
|---|---|
| iPhones with 128GB of Storage | 8,192 |
| iPhones with 256GB of Storage | 4,096 |
| iPhones with 512GB of Storage | 2,048 |
| iPhones with 1TB of Storage | 1,024 |
What Comes After Petabyte?
The next measure of unit that comes after the petabyte is the exabyte.
How Many Petabytes (PB) in an Exabyte (EB)?
There are 1,024 petabytes in an exabyte, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given all you’ve learned so far. Either way, that’s an absolutely massive amount of data.
It’s difficult to actually pinpoint exact dates, so we’ll go with available estimates that indicate that humanity reached 1 exabyte of stored data back in 2005.
| Value | Petabytes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Exabyte | 1024 | 1,024 |
| 1 Zettabyte | 1024^2 | 1,048,576 |
| 1 Yottabyte | 1024^3 | 1,073,741,824 |
| 1 Ronnabyte | 1024^4 | 1,099,511,627,776 |
| 1 Quettabyte | 1024^5 | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
How Big Is An Exabyte (EB)?
An exabyte of data has the capacity to store enough HD video, photos, songs and web pages to keep any digital explorer occupied for an unfathomable length of time. That’s some 220 million DVDs, or 5 billion hours of streaming music. You’d also be able to store about 36,000 years of HD video.
How Many Bytes in a Exabyte?
There are 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes in an exabyte. Unsure how to that one? That’s one quintillion, one hundred fifty-two quadrillion, nine hundred twenty-one trillion, five hundred four billion, six hundred six million, eight hundred forty-six thousand, nine hundred seventy-six. We’re tired just reading it out. You’re welcome.
How Many Gigabytes (GB) in a Exabyte (EB)? How Many 128GB iPhones Is This?
There are 1,073,741,824 gigabytes in an exabyte. That’s the equivalent of 8.3 million 128GB iPhones. Impressive, right?
| 1 Exabyte | |
|---|---|
| iPhones with 128GB of Storage | 8,388,608 |
| iPhones with 256GB of Storage | 4,194,304 |
| iPhones with 512GB of Storage | 2,097,152 |
| iPhones with 1TB of Storage | 1,048,576 |
What Comes After Exabyte?
The exabyte is followed by the zettabyte.
How Many Exabytes (EB) in An Zettabyte (ZB)?
There are 1,024 exabytes in a zettabyte. It is often abbreviated as ZB or ZettaB. The International Data Corporation estimated that humanity actually hit a zettabyte of stored data sometime before 2020.
| Value | Exabytes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Zettabyte | 1024 | 1,024 |
| 1 Yottabyte | 1024^2 | 1,048,576 |
| 1 Ronnabyte | 1024^3 | 1,073,741,824 |
| 1 Quettabyte | 1024^4 | 1,099,511,627,776 |
How Big is a Zettabyte (ZB)?
A staggering amount of data is contained in just one zettabyte! Think about it – you’d need 240 billion DVDs to store that much information. You could store over 100 trillion songs with an average size of 10MB, or a quadrillion high res photos.
It is difficult to comprehend just how much data that is. However, it is important to remember that the amount of data that is being created every day is growing exponentially.
How Many Bytes in a Zettabyte?
There are 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bytes in a zettabyte. Difficulty reading that number? We know how you feel. That’s one sextillion. If that’s not any better, then perhaps one million trillion does? Probably not.
How Many Gigabytes (GB) are in a Zettabyte (ZB)? How many 128GB iPhones Are in It?
There are nearly 1.1 trillion gigabytes in a zettabyte. That’s a mind-boggling 8.5 billion 128GB iPhones.
| 1 Zettabyte | |
|---|---|
| iPhones with 128GB of Storage | 8,589,934,592 |
| iPhones with 256GB of Storage | 4,294,967,296 |
| iPhones with 512GB of Storage | 2,147,483,648 |
| iPhones with 1TB of Storage | 1,073,741,824 |
What Comes After Zettabyte…
It may surprise you, but we still have some units to go. After the Zettabyte, we have the Yottabyte.
How Many Zettabytes (ZB) in an Yottabyte (YB)?
There are an impressive 1,024 zettabytes in a yottabyte. We have not yet reached this impressive milestone.
| Value | Zettabytes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Yottabyte | 1024 | 1024 |
| 1 Ronnabyte | 1024^2 | 1048576 |
| 1 Quettabyte | 1024^3 | 1073741824 |
How Big Is a Yottabyte (YB)?
Our current technology can barely fathom the sheer size of data that a single yottabyte could contain – think 240 trillion DVDs’ worth! It’s incredible to imagine how much information is out there waiting for us, proving just how immense and limitless our digital universe really is.
How Many Bytes in a Yottabyte?
That’s about 1.2 septillion bytes. That’s pretty much impossible to wrap your head around. In fact, it’s more than the number of grains of sand estimated to be on Earth!
How Many Gigabytes (GB) in a Yottabyte (YB)? And How Many 128GB iPhones Is This?
There are over 1.2 quadrillion gigabytes in one yottabyte. That’s about 7.8 trillion iPhones with 128GB of space. Tough to picture!
Is There a Storage Capacity Above a Yottabyte?
Yes, in late 2022, two new classifications were introduced to allow for the ever-growing global data. The Ronnabyte and the Quettabyte were introduced with their respective abbreviations, namely RB and QB.
What Is a Ronnabyte (RB) and How Big Is It?
The Ronnabyte is 10 to the power 27. Those are 27 zeroes after 1. Or, if you want to get technical, over 245 quadrillion DVDs. That’s more than humanity may ever need, even with the exponential growth we see nowadays.
What Is a Quettabyte (QB) and How Big Is It?
The Quettabyte is 10 to the power 30, so you get 30 zeroes this time. That’s over 245 quintillion DVDs. It’s not a number most of us can comprehend.