mäluühikud

Mäluühikud are units used to measure digital information storage capacity. They are based on the binary system, where information is represented by bits, which can be either 0 or 1. The smallest unit is a bit.

A byte is the most common unit and consists of eight bits. This is typically enough to store a single character, such as a letter or number. Larger units are derived from the byte through prefixes.

The prefix "kilo" (k) traditionally represented 1024 bytes, which is 2^10 bytes. This is known as a kibibyte (KiB). However, in some contexts, particularly in marketing and hard drive manufacturing, "kilo" is used to represent 1000 bytes (10^3 bytes). This can lead to confusion regarding storage capacity.

Following the kibibyte are mebibyte (MiB), gibibyte (GiB), tebibyte (TiB), and so on, each representing a factor of 1024 (2^10) of the previous unit. These are the "binary" prefixes.

Conversely, the "decimal" prefixes, often used in networking speeds and storage device specifications, use powers of 1000. These include kilobyte (KB, 1000 bytes), megabyte (MB, 1000 kilobytes), gigabyte (GB, 1000 megabytes), terabyte (TB, 1000 gigabytes), and so on. Understanding the distinction between binary and decimal prefixes is crucial for accurate interpretation of digital storage and data transfer rates.