3TB

3 terabytes (3 TB) is a unit of digital information storage equal to 3 × 10^12 bytes. In binary terms it is approximately 2.73 tebibytes (TiB), since 1 TiB equals 2^40 bytes. The distinction between decimal terabytes and binary tebibytes is routinely encountered when comparing advertised device capacities with what operating systems report.

3 TB is a common capacity for consumer storage devices, including hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs), as well as external and network-attached storage. It is suitable for backing up personal files, storing large media libraries, and hosting data for small-scale servers or workstations.

Capacity estimates: at about 5 megabytes per song, a 3 TB drive could hold roughly 600,000 songs; at typical video bitrates, it could store around 1,000 to 1,300 hours of HD video. Actual usable space is less than the nominal rating after formatting and system files, and may vary by device and file system.

Manufacturers may advertise 3 TB drives using decimal terabytes, while operating systems sometimes display a value in TiB. This discrepancy can lead to apparent differences in capacity. When precision matters, refer to bytes (for example, 3,000,000,000,000 bytes).