The byte has been a commonly used unit of measure for much of the information age to refer to a number of bits. In the early days of computing, it was used for differing numbers of bits based on convention and computer hardware design, but today means 8 bits. A more accurate, but less commonly used name for 8 bits is octet.
Commonly, a decimal SImetric prefix (such as kilo-) is used with bit and byte to express larger sizes (kilobit, kilobyte). But, this is usually inaccurate since these prefixes are decimal, whereas binary hardware size is usually binary. Customarily, each metric prefix, 1000n, is used to mean a close approximation of a binary multiple, 1024n. Often, this distinction is implicit, and therefore, use of metric prefixes can lead to confusion. The IECbinary prefixes (such as kibi-) allow for accurate description of hardware sizes, but are not commonly used.[1][2]
5 bits – the size of code points in the Baudot code, used in telex communication (a.k.a. pentad)
6 bits – the size of code points in UnivacFieldata, in IBM "BCD" format, and in Braille. Enough to uniquely identify one codon of genetic code. The size of code points in Base64; thus, often the entropy per character in a randomly-generated password.
7 bits – the size of code points in the ASCII character set
36 bits – size of word on Univac 1100-series computers and Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-10
56 bits (7 bytes) – cipher strength of the DES encryption standard
26
64 bits (8 bytes)
– size of an integer capable of holding 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 different values
– size of an IEEE 754 double-precision floating point number
– equivalent to 1 "word" on 64-bit computers (Power, PA-RISC, Alpha, Itanium, SPARC, x86-64 PCs and Macintoshes).
– the "word size" for 64-bit console systems including: Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
80 bits (10 bytes) – size of an extended precision floating point number, for intermediate calculations that can be performed in floating point units of most processors of the x86 family.
102
hectobit
100 bits
27
128 bits (16 bytes)
– size of addresses in IPv6, the successor protocol of IPv4
– minimum cipher strength of the Rijndael and AES encryption standards, and of the widely used MD5 cryptographic message digest algorithm
– size of an SSE vector register, included as part of the x86-64 standard
160 bits (20 bytes) – maximum key length of the SHA-1, standard Tiger (hash function), and Tiger2 cryptographic message digest algorithms
28
256 bits (32 bytes)
– minimum key length for the recommended strong cryptographic message digests as of 2004[update]
– size of an AVX2 vector register, present on newer x86-64 CPUs
29
512 bits (64 bytes)
– maximum key length for the standard strong cryptographic message digests in 2004
– size of an AVX-512 vector register, present on some x86-64 CPUs
1,024 bits (128 bytes) - RAM capacity of the Atari 2600
1,288 bits (161 bytes) – approximate maximum capacity of a standard magnetic stripe card
211
2,048 bits (256 bytes) – RAM capacity of the stock Altair 8800
212
4,096 bits (512 bytes)
– typical sector size, and minimum space allocation unit on computer storage volumes, with most file systems
– approximate amount of information on a sheet of single-spaced typewritten paper (without formatting)
4,704 bits (588 bytes) – uncompressed single-channel frame length in standard MPEG audio (75 frames per second and per channel), with medium quality 8-bit sampling at 44,100 Hz (or 16-bit sampling at 22,050 Hz)
8,192 bits (1,024 bytes) – RAM capacity of a ZX81 and a ZX80.
9,408 bits (1,176 bytes) – uncompressed single-channel frame length in standard MPEG audio (75 frames per second and per channel), with standard 16-bit sampling at 44,100 Hz
104
15,360 bits – one screen of data displayed on an 8-bit monochrome text console (80x24)
8,589,934,592 bits (1,024 mebibytes) – The maximum disk capacity using the 21-bit LBASCSI standard introduced in 1979.
1010
10,000,000,000 bits
234
17,179,869,184 bits (2 gibibytes). The storage limit of IDE standard for harddisks in 1986, also the volume size limit for the FAT16B file system (with 32 KiB clusters) released in 1987 as well as the maximum file size (2 GiB-1) in DOS operating systems prior to the introduction of large file support in DOS 7.10 (1997).
235
34,359,738,368 bits (4 gibibytes) – maximum addressable memory for the Motorola 68020 (1984) and Intel 80386 (1985), also the volume size limit for the FAT16B file system (with 64 KiB clusters) as well as the maximum file size (4 GiB-1) in MS-DOS 7.1-8.0.
3.76×1010 bits (4.7 gigabytes) – capacity of a single-layer, single-sided DVD
236
68,719,476,736 bits (8 gibibytes)
79,215,880,888 bits – 9.2 GiB size of Wikipedia article text compressed with bzip2 on 2013-06-05
1011
100,000,000,000 bits
237
137,438,953,472 bits (16 gibibytes).
1.46×1011 bits (17 gigabytes) – capacity of a double-sided, dual-layered DVD
2.15×1011 bits (25 gigabytes) – capacity of a single-sided, single-layered 12-cm Blu-ray
1,099,511,627,776 bits (128 gibibytes) – estimated capacity of the Polychaos dubium genome, the largest known genome. The storage limit for ATA-1 compliant disks introduced in 1994.
1.6×1012 bits (200 gigabytes) – capacity of a hard disk that would be considered average as of 2008[update]. In 2005 a 200 GB harddisk cost US$100,[5] equivalent to $156 in 2023. As of April 2015, this is the maximum capacity of a fingernail-sized microSD card.
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2,199,023,255,552 bits (256 gibibytes) – As of 2017, this is the maximum capacity of a fingernail-sized microSD card
16,435,678,019,584 bits (1.9 terabytes) – Size of all multimedia files used in the English Wikipedia in May 2012
244
17,592,186,044,416 bits (2 tebibytes) – Maximum size of MBR partitions used in PCs introduced in 1983, also the maximum disk capacity using the 32-bit LBASCSI introduced in 1987
10 petabytes (1016 bytes) – estimated approximate size of the Library of Congress's collection, including non-book materials, as of 2005.[8] Size of the Internet Archive topped 10 PB in October 2013[9]
1017
100,000,000,000,000,000 bits
257
144,115,188,075,855,872 bits (16 pebibytes)
2×1017 bits (25 petabytes) – Storage space of Megaupload file-hosting service at the time it was shut down in 2012[10]
258
288,230,376,151,711,744 bits (32 pebibytes)
259
576,460,752,303,423,488 bits (64 pebibytes)
8 ×1017, the storage capacity of the fictional Star Trek character Data
1.2×1020 bits (15 exabytes) – estimated storage space at Google data warehouse as of 2013[14]
267
147,573,952,589,676,412,928 bits (16 exbibytes) – maximum addressable memory using 64-bit addresses without segmentation.[15] Maximum file size for ZFS filesystem.
268
295,147,905,179,352,825,856 bits (32 exbibytes)
3.5 × 1020 bits – increase in information capacity when 1 joule of energy is added to a heat-bath at 300 K(27 °C)[16]
276 bits – Maximum volume and file size in the Unix File System (UFS) and maximum disk capacity using the 64-bit LBASCSI standard introduced in 2000 using 512-byte blocks.[20]
1023
1.0×1023 bits – increase in information capacity when 1 joule of energy is added to a heat-bath at 1 K (−272.15 °C)[21]
277
6.0×1023 bits – information content of 1 mole (12.01 g) of graphite at 25 °C; equivalent to an average of 0.996 bits per atom.[22]
1.1×1025 bits – entropy increase of 1 mole(18.02 g) of water, on vaporizing at 100 °C at standard pressure; equivalent to an average of 18.90 bits per molecule.[24]
1.5×1025 bits – information content of 1 mole (20.18 g) of neon gas at 25 °C and 1 atm; equivalent to an average of 25.39 bits per atom.[25]
2131 bits, 2128 bytes – theoretical maximum volume size of the ZFS filesystem.[26][27][28]
2150
1042
~ 1042 bits – the number of bits required to perfectly recreate the natural matter of the average-sized U.S. adult male human brain down to the quantum level on a computer is about 2.6×1042 bits of information (see Bekenstein bound for the basis for this calculation).
^Equivalent to 146.33 J K−1. Standard molar entropy of neon. An experimental value, see [1]Archived 27 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine for a theoretical calculation.