CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT IV - Unit of storage (SS2 First Term)

Unit of storage

The storage capacity is the amount of space available for the storage of data in a particular storage media. The storage unit includes:

• ·   Bits: a bit is a contraction of the word “binary digit” and is denoted with either 1 or 0. A bit is the simplest unit of data storage.
• ·   Nibble: a nibble is a collection of 4 bits
• ·   Byte: a byte is a collection of 8 bits
• ·   Word: a word is 2 bytes
• ·   Kilobyte: a kilobyte is 1024 bytes (1000 bytes approximately)
• ·    Megabyte: a megabyte is 1048576 bytes i.e. 1024²bytes (1 million bytes approximately)
• ·    Gigabyte: a gigabyte is 1073741824bytes i.e. 1024³bytes (1 billion bytes approximately)
• ·       Terabyte: a terabyte is 1099511627776 bytes i.e. 1024⁴bytes (1 trillion bytes approximately)

 Conversion from one unit of storage to another

1.      Convert 64 bits to byte

Solution:          8 bits make 1 byte

                                    1 bit makes 1/8 byte

64 bits make 1/8 x 64 = 8 bytes

2.      Convert 16384 bits to byte and kilobyte

Solution:          a. 8 bits = 1 byte

                        1 bit     = 1/8 byte

                        16384 bits = 1/8 x 16384

                                    = 2048 bytes

                        b. 1024 bytes = 1 KB

                        1 byte = 1/1024 KB

                        2048 bytes = 1/1024 x 2048

                                    = 2KB