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What is Megabyte?
A megabyte is a unit of measurement in computer science that is used for measuring files, documents, and media. One megabyte is equal to 1024 kilobytes (KB) or one million (10^6) bytes. A megabyte is represented by an uppercase âMBâ.
How Big is a Megabyte?
- 1 megabyte is equal to 1,024 kilobytes (KB)
- 1 megabyte is equal to 1,000,000 bytes (B)
- 1 megabyte is equal to 2 to the power of 20 bytes
- 1 megabyte could store around 250 songs in MIDI format
- 1 megabyte could store approximately 500 pages of plain text
- 1 megabyte could store about 200 5 KB images
Examples of Use
Depending on compression and file type, one megabyte of data could be:
- A 1024×1024 pixel bitmap image with 256 colors (8-bit color depth).
- 1 minute of MP3 music compressed at 128 kbit/s.
- 6 seconds of CD audio without compression.
- A standard English book in plain text (500 pages × 2000 characters per page).
Approximate Conversions
- 1 MB = 500 Word document pages of text.
- 5 MB = 1 photo from a 12-megapixel camera.
- 30 MB = 1 minute of HD video on YouTube.
- 500 MB = The contents of a standard CD-ROM.
- 5,000 MB = A DVD-quality movie.
Megabyte vs Megabit
The following table refers to the differences between Megabytes and Megabits −
| Term | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Megabyte (MB) | Used for data transfer rates like 400 MBps for USB flash drives. Sometimes confused with megabits per second (Mbps). |
| Megabit (Mb) | Equal to 1,000,000 bits (decimal) or 1,048,576 bits (binary). One-eighth the size of a megabyte. 1 MB = 8 Mb. |
| Usage | Megabits are used to measure data transferred over a network, while megabytes are often used to describe storage capacities or data transfer speeds. |
Megabyte in terms of decimal notation
The following table shows the ways to represent a megabyte in terms of decimal notation (base-10).
| Notation Type | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Decimal Notation (Base-10) | A megabyte in decimal notation equals 10^6 bytes, or 1,000,000 bytes. |
| Binary Notation (Base-2) | A megabyte in binary notation equals 2^20 bytes, or 1,048,576 bytes. |
| Historical Context | Early computer systems measured storage in kilobytes, where the difference between decimal and binary was only 24 bytes. |
| Impact of Larger Capacities | As storage capacities increased, the difference between decimal and binary notation became more significant, growing to over 24 MB at 500 MB. |
Megabyte, Kilobyte, and Gigabyte â Comparison Table
The following table compares Megabyte, Kilobyte and Gigabyte −
| Kilobyte | Megabyte | Gigabyte |
|---|---|---|
| 1 KB = 1,024 Bytes | 1 MB = 1,024 KB = 1,048,576 Bytes | 1 GB = 1,024 MB = 1,048,576 KB = 1,073,741,824 Bytes |
| Text document may contain 10 KB of information | JPEG image might range in size from 1-5 megabytes | Standard DVD drive can hold 4.7 GB of data |
| The symbol of kilobyte is uppercase "KB" | The symbol of Megabyte is uppercase "MB" | The symbol of Gigabyte is uppercase "GB" |
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