2Mbytes

2 Mbytes, or two megabytes, is a unit of digital information storage. It corresponds to approximately two million bytes, but the exact value depends on whether decimal or binary definitions are used. In decimal notation, 1 MB equals 1,000,000 bytes, so 2 MB equals 2,000,000 bytes. In binary terms, 1 MiB equals 1,048,576 bytes, so 2 MiB equals 2,097,152 bytes. The discrepancy stems from historical conventions in computing, where powers of two were common but the SI prefixes were not consistently applied. Modern standards separate the definitions, using MB for megabytes (decimal) and MiB for mebibytes (binary).

Applications and file sizes: 2 MB is relatively small by contemporary standards. Plain text files are typically well under a few kilobytes per page, while high-quality images can range from hundreds of kilobytes to several megabytes. Audio files at common rates around 128–192 kbps yield roughly 1–1.5 MB per minute, so a 2 MB audio clip would be around two minutes in length. Video files are usually measured in tens of megabytes or more for short clips, depending on resolution and bitrate. Older computer systems often had memory or storage capacities near 2 MB, illustrating how much storage has grown since then.

See also: storage capacity measurement, binary prefixes, megabyte.