Gigabyte
From GamerWiki
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Overview
A Gigabyte (gig, GB, gbyte) is a measurement of storage on a Device or Drive. Electronic storage is measured in gigabytes, megabytes, gigabits etc. However many console makers cover this up by using a simple user friendly name like "Block".
So for example the Sony PlayStation memory card was split into 15 blocks, this meant that each block was around 68.2KB (all 15 blocks (68.2KB) adding up to 1MB (or 1024KB)). So any save game file which was 68.2KB or smaller would take 1 block. If however the save game was bigger than 68.2KB but smaller than 136.4KB then it would take two blocks on the memory card.
How big is a Gigabyte?
- 1 Gigabyte contains 1024 Megabytes (2^30 bytes)
- 1 Megabyte contains 1024 Kilobytes (2^20 bytes)
- 1 Kilobyte contains 1024 Bytes (2^10 bytes)
The Microsoft Xbox contains an 8 gigabyte hard drive, although some Xbox models did include a 10 gigabyte hard drive (without formatting, only 8 gigabyte is avaliable however)
1 gigabyte provides the same amount of storage space as 125+ Official Sony PlayStation 2 memory cards.
Useful Information
The GB Confusion
Some people often get confused about bits and bytes as they are displayed in a similar way. 10GB could be either 10 Gigabytes or 10 Gigabits. One of the most common confusion between the two is Internet speeds.
For example your average broadband speed is 512Kbs, most people think this means 512kilobytes per second and are then confused when they see download speeds of only 60-70Kbs. The reason for this is that in fact 512Kbs is actually 512 Kilobits per second and the download speed is displayed in Kilobytes per second.
- 512 Kilobits = 68 Kilobytes
The same applies to gigabits and gigabytes; there are 8 gigabits in 1 gigabyte.
How to convert
If you ever need to convert one format into another you can use Google's excellent convert. Goto google.com and instead of entering a search term, instead enter this formula
- [amount] [type] in [type]
So an example would be:
- 100 gigabyte in gigabit
Then hit enter/search, instead of searching it will convert it for you as long as you used the correct formats.
