Units of Data Storage | 2.3 | OCR GCSE Computer Science | J277

11 flashcards

Why is all data stored in binary code?

Because computer systems consist of billions of tiny transistors with only 2 states: ON (1) and OFF (0).

What is a single binary digit called?

A bit e.g. 1

How many bits are in a nibble?

1 nibble = 4 bits e.g. 0110

How many bits are in a byte?

1 byte = 8 bits e.g. 1011 0010

Data unit size order (x 1000)

Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte, Petabyte

In how many bytes are each character on a keyboard stored in?

1 or 2 bytes.

What are text documents without pictures (e.g. Kindle books) measured in?

Kilobytes (kB)

What are songs and images measured in?

Megabytes (MB)

What are video games and movies measured in?

Gigabytes (GB)

What are secondary storage (e.g. HDD and SSD) measured in?

Terabytes

How many images and hours of video can 1 petabyte of data store?

250 million images - 1 million hours of video (114 years) - Only global organisations (e.g. Google, Microsoft, Meta) would use petabytes.