Andmeüksus

andmeüksus is an Estonian term that translates literally to data unit. In information technology it denotes a unit of data, the quantity of information that a storage medium, a transmission channel, or a processing system can handle. The term is generic and context-dependent, and it can refer to any of several standard units such as bit, byte, or larger multiples.

The most fundamental data unit is the bit, a binary value of 0 or 1. In practical computing, data quantities are commonly expressed in bytes and larger multiples: byte (8 bits), kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, and beyond. Some contexts use binary prefixes (kibibyte, mebibyte) to avoid confusion with decimal prefixes (kilobyte = 1000 bytes, megabyte = 1,000,000 bytes).

andmeüksus is formed from Estonian andme- meaning data or information, and -üksus meaning unit. It is used across hardware, software, and networking to describe data capacity, transfer amounts, or payload sizes. It is also a basic concept in information theory, where the fundamental unit of information is the bit and where entropy is measured in bits. In educational and documentation settings, andmeüksus serves as a convenient umbrella term for discussing data quantities without committing to a specific unit.

Because different systems and standards describe data in different scales, clarity often requires naming the exact unit (for example, 2 kilobytes, 512 bits).