Orders of magnitude (data)

An order of magnitude is generally a factor of ten. A quantity growing by four orders of magnitude implies it has grown by a factor of 10000 or 10⁴. However, because computers are binary, orders of magnitude are sometimes given as powers of two.

This article presents a list of multiples, sorted by orders of magnitude, for digital information storage measured in bits. This article assumes a descriptive attitude towards terminology, reflecting general usage. The article assumes the following:

A group of 8 bits constitutes one byte. The byte is the most common unit of measurement of information (megabyte, mebibyte, gigabyte, gibibyte, etc.).
In 16-bit and 32-bit architectures, having processor registers of these sizes, that chunk of data is usually called a word.
The decimal SI prefixes kilo, mega etc., are powers of 10. The power of two equivalents are the binary prefixes kibi, mebi, etc.

Accordingly:

1 kB (kilobyte) = 1000 bytes = 8000 bits
1 KiB (kibibyte) = 2¹⁰ bytes = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits

**Orders of magnitude (data)**
Binary		Decimal		Item
Factor	Term	Factor	Term	Item
2⁰	bit	10⁰	bit	1 bit – 0 or 1, false or true, Low or High
				1.6 bits – approximate size of a trit (a base-3 digit)
2¹				2 bits – a crumb (rarely used term), enough to uniquely identify one base pair of genetic code
				3 bits – the size of an octal digit
2²	nibble^[1]			4 bits – (aka "nibble" or "semioctet", rarely used) the size of a hexadecimal digit; decimal digits in binary-coded decimal form
				5 bits – the size of code points in the Baudot code, used in telex communication
				6 bits – the size of code points in Univac Fieldata, in IBM "BCD" format, and in Braille. Enough to uniquely identify one codon of genetic code.
				7 bits – the size of code points in the ASCII character set – minimum length to store 2 decimal digits
2³	byte			8 bits – (a.k.a. "octet") on many computer architectures. – Equivalent to 1 "word" on 8-bit computers (Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore 64, et al.). – the "word size" (instruction length) for 8-bit console systems including: Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System
		10¹	decabit	10 bits – minimum bit length to store a single byte with error-correcting memory – minimum frame length to transmit a single byte with asynchronous serial protocols
				12 bits – wordlength of the PDP-8 of Digital Equipment Corporation (built from 1965–1990)
2⁴				16 bits – commonly used in many programming languages, the size of an integer capable of holding 65,536 different values – Equivalent to 1 "word" on 16-bit computers (IBM PC, Commodore Amiga) – the "word size" (instruction length) for 16-bit console systems including: Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Mattel Intellivision
2⁵				32 bits (4 bytes) – size of an integer capable of holding 4,294,967,296 different values – size of an IEEE 754 single-precision floating point number – size of addresses in IPv4, the current Internet protocol – Equivalent to 1 "word" on 32-bit computers (Apple Macintosh, Pentium-based PC). – the "word size" (instruction length) for various console systems including: PlayStation, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, Wii
				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" (instruction length) 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
				160 bits – maximum key length of the SHA-1, standard Tiger (hash), 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]
2⁹				512 bits (64 bytes) – maximum key length for the standard strong cryptographic message digests in 2004
		10³	kilobit	1000 bits
2¹⁰	kibibit			1024 bits (128 bytes)
				1288 bits – approximate maximum capacity of a standard magnetic stripe card
2¹¹				2048 bits (256 bytes) – RAM capacity of the stock Altair 8800
2¹²				4096 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)
				4704 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)
				8000 bits (10³ bytes) – one kilobyte
2¹³	kibibyte			8192 bits (1,024 bytes) – RAM capacity of a Sinclair ZX81.
				9408 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)
2¹⁴				16,384 bits (2 kibibytes) – one page of typed text,^[2] RAM capacity of Nintendo Entertainment System
2¹⁵				32,768 bits (4 kibibytes)
2¹⁶				65,536 bits (8 kibibytes)
		10⁵		100,000 bits
2¹⁷				131,072 bits (16 kibibytes) – RAM capacity of the smallest Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
				160 kilobits – approximate size of this article as of 15 April 2010
2¹⁸				262,144 bits (32 kibibytes)
2¹⁹				524,288 bits (64 kibibytes) – RAM capacity of a lot of popular 8-bit Computers like the C-64, Amstrad CPC etc.
		10⁶	megabit	1,000,000 bits
2²⁰	mebibit			1,048,576 bits (128 kibibytes) – RAM capacity of popular 8-bit Computers like the C-128, Amstrad CPC etc.
				1,978,560 bits – a one-page, standard-resolution black-and-white fax (1728 × 1145 pixels)
2²¹				2,097,152 bits (256 kibibytes)
				4,147,200 bits – one frame of uncompressed NTSC DVD video (720 × 480 × 12 bpp Y'CbCr)
2²²				4,194,304 bits (512 kibibytes)
				4,976,640 bits – one frame of uncompressed PAL DVD video (720 × 576 × 12 bpp Y'CbCr)
				5.242.880 bits (640 kibibytes) – the maximum addressable memory of the original IBM PC architecture
				8,343,400 bits – one "typical" sized photograph with reasonably good quality (1024 × 768 pixels).
2²³	mebibyte			8,388,608 bits (1024 kibibytes)
		10⁷		11,520,000 bits – capacity of a lower-resolution computer monitor (as of 2006), 800 × 600 pixels, 24 bpp
				11,796,480 bits – capacity of a 3.5 in floppy disk, colloquially known as 1.44 megabyte but actually 1.44 × 1000 × 1024 bytes
2²⁴				16,777,216 bits (2 mebibytes)
				25 megabits – amount of data in a typical color slide
2²⁵				33,554,432 bits (4 mebibytes) – RAM capacity of stock Nintendo 64
				41,943,040 bits (5 mebibytes) – approximate size of the Complete Works of Shakespeare^[2]
				98,304,000 bits – capacity of a high-resolution computer monitor as of 2011, 2560 × 1600 pixels, 24 bpp
				50–100 megabits – amount of information in a typical phone book
2²⁶		10⁸		67,108,864 bit (8 mebibytes)
2²⁷				134,217,728 bits (16 mebibytes)
				150 megabits – amount of data in a large foldout map
2²⁸				268,435,456 (32 mebibytes)
				423,360,000 bits: a five-minute audio recording, in CDDA quality
2²⁹				536,870,912 bits (64 mebibytes)
		10⁹	gigabit	1,000,000,000 bits
2³⁰	gibibit			1,073,741,824 bits (128 mebibytes)
2³¹				2,147,483,648 bits (256 mebibytes)
2³²				4,294,967,296 bits (512 mebibytes)
				5.45×10⁹ bits (650 mebibytes) – capacity of a regular compact disc
				5.89×10⁹ bits (702 mebibytes) – capacity of a large regular compact disc
				6.4×10⁹ bits – capacity of the human genome (assuming 2 bits for each base pair)
2³³	gibibyte			8,589,934,592 bits (1024 mebibytes)
		10¹⁰		10,000,000,000 bits
2³⁴				17,179,869,184 bits (2 gibibytes)
2³⁵				34,359,738,368 bits (4 gibibytes) – maximum addressable memory on the Intel 80386
				3.76×10¹⁰ bits (4.7 gigabytes) – capacity of a single-layer, single-sided DVD
2³⁶				68,719,476,736 bits (8 gibibytes)
		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 disc
2³⁸				274,877,906,944 bits (32 gibibytes)
2³⁹				549,755,813,888 bits (64 gibibytes)
		10¹²	terabit	1,000,000,000,000 bits (125 gigabytes)
2⁴⁰	tebibit			1.34×10¹² bits – estimated capacity of the Polychaos dubium genome, the largest known genome
				1.6×10¹² bits (200 gigabytes) – capacity of a hard disk that would be considered average as of 2008^[update]
2⁴¹				2,199,023,255,552 bits (256 gibibytes)
2⁴²				4,398,046,511,104 bits (512 gibibytes)
2⁴³	tebibyte			8,796,093,022,208 bits (1024 gibibytes)
				(approximately) 8.97×10¹² bits – as of 2010^[update], data of π to the largest number of decimal digits ever calculated (2.7×10¹²)
		10¹³		10,000,000,000,000 bits (1.25 terabytes) – capacity of a human being's functional memory, according to Raymond Kurzweil in The Singularity Is Near, p. 126
2⁴⁴				17,592,186,044,416 bits (2 tebibytes)
2⁴⁵				35,184,372,088,832 bits (4 tebibytes)
2⁴⁶				70,368,744,177,664 bits (8 tebibytes)
		10¹⁴		100,000,000,000,000 bits
2⁴⁷				140,737,488,355,328 bits (16 tebibytes)
				1.5×10¹⁴ bits (18.75 terabytes)
2⁴⁸				281,474,976,710,656 bits (32 tebibytes)
2⁴⁹				562,949,953,421,312 bits (64 tebibytes)
		10¹⁵	petabit	1,000,000,000,000,000 bits
2⁵⁰	pebibit			1,125,899,906,842,624 bits (128 tebibytes)
				2.4×10¹⁵ bits (300 terabytes) – size of the Internet Archive as of 2004^[update]
2⁵¹				2,251,799,813,685,248 bits (256 tebibytes)
2⁵²				4,503,599,627,370,496 bits (512 tebibytes)
				8,000,000,000,000,000 bits (10¹⁵ bytes) – one petabyte
2⁵³	pebibyte			9,007,199,254,740,992 bits (1024 tebibytes)
		10¹⁶		10,000,000,000,000,000 bits
2⁵⁴				18,014,398,509,481,984 bits (2 pebibytes)
2⁵⁵				36,028,797,018,963,968 bits (4 pebibytes) – theoretical maximum of addressable physical memory in the AMD64 architecture
				4.5×10¹⁶ bits (5.625 petabytes) – estimated hard drive space in Google's server farm as of 2004^[update]
2⁵⁶				72,057,594,037,927,936 bits (8 pebibytes)
				10 petabytes (10¹⁶ bytes) – estimated approximate size of the Library of Congress's collection, including non-book materials, as of 2005^[3]
		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^[4]
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
		10¹⁸	exabit	1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
2⁶⁰	exbibit			1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bits (128 pebibytes)
				1.6×10¹⁸ bits (200 petabytes) – total amount of printed material in the world
2⁶¹				2,305,843,009,213,693,952 bits (256 pebibytes)
2⁶²				4,611,686,018,427,387,904 bits (512 pebibytes)
2⁶³	exbibyte			9,223,372,036,854,775,808 bits (1024 pebibytes)
		10¹⁹		10,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
2⁶⁴				18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bits (2 exbibytes)
2⁶⁵				36,893,488,147,419,103,232 bits (4 exbibytes)
				50,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits (50 exabit)
2⁶⁶				73,786,976,294,838,206,464 bits (8 exbibytes)
		10²⁰		100,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
2⁶⁷				147,573,952,589,676,412,928 bits (16 exbibytes) – maximum addressable memory using 64bit addresses without segmentation
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)^[5]
2⁶⁹				590,295,810,358,705,651,712 bits (64 exbibytes)
		10²¹	zettabit	1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
2⁷⁰	zebibit			1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bits (128 exbibytes)
2⁷¹				2,361,183,241,434,822,606,848 bits (256 exbibytes)
				3.4×10²¹ bits (0.36 zettabytes) – amount of information that can be stored in 1 gram of DNA^[6]
				4.7×10²¹ bits (0.50 zettabytes) – amount of digitally stored information in the world as of May 2009^[7]
2⁷²				4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 bits (512 exbibytes)
2⁷³	zebibyte			9,444,732,965,739,290,427,392 bits (1024 exbibytes)
		10²²		10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
		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)^[8]
				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.^[9]
		10²⁴	yottabit	7.3×10²⁴ bits – information content of 1 mole (18.02 g) of liquid water at 25 °C; equivalent to an average of 12.14 bits per molecule.^[10]
2⁸⁰	yobibit			1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bits (128 zebibytes)
		10²⁵		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.^[11]
				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.^[12]
2 ¹⁵⁰		10⁴⁵		~ 10⁴⁵ bits – the number of bits required to perfectly recreate the average-sized U.S. adult male human being down to the quantum level on a computer is about 2×10⁴⁵ bits of information (see Bekenstein bound for the basis for this calculation).
		10⁵⁸		~ 10⁵⁸ bits – thermodynamic entropy of the sun^[13] (about 30 bits per proton, plus 10 bits per electron).
		10⁶⁹		~ 10⁶⁹ bits – thermodynamic entropy of the Milky Way Galaxy (counting only the stars, not the black holes within the galaxy)
		10⁷⁷		1.5×10⁷⁷ bits – information content of a one-solar-mass black hole.^[14]
2³⁰⁵		10⁹²		The information capacity of the observable universe, according to Seth Lloyd.^[15]
2^332.19		10¹⁰⁰		googol number
2^{3.3219·googol}		10^googol		googolplex number

For comparison, the Avogadro constant is 6.02214179(30)×10²³ entities per mole, based upon the number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12 isotope.

References

^ also spelled nybble
^ ^a ^b "A special report on managing information: All too much". The Economist. 25 February 2010. Retrieved 4 March 2010.
^ Hickey, Thom (OCLC Chief Scientist) (21 June 2005). "Entire Library of Congress". Outgoing. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
^ 25 petabyte on Megaupload. Retrieved 16 February 2012
^ $\scriptstyle {\frac {1}{300}}$ J K⁻¹
^ http://www.tmrfindia.org/ijcsa/V2I29.pdf
^ "Internet data heads for 500bn gigabytes", The Guardian, 18 May 2009. Retrieved on 23 April 2010.
^ 1 J K⁻¹. Equivalent to 1/(k ln 2) bits, where k is Boltzmann's constant
^ Equivalent to 5.74 J K⁻¹. Standard molar entropy of graphite.
^ Equivalent to 69.95 J K⁻¹. Standard molar entropy of water.
^ Equivalent to 108.9 J K⁻¹
^ Equivalent to 146.33 J K⁻¹. Standard molar entropy of neon. An experimental value, see [1] for a theoretical calculation.
^ Given as 10⁴² erg K⁻¹ in Bekenstein (1973), Black Holes and Entropy, Physical Review D 7 2338
^ Entropy = $\scriptstyle Ac^{3}/4G\hbar$ in nats, with $A=16\pi G^{2}M^{2}/c^{4}$ for a Schwartzschild black hole. 1 nat = 1/ln(2) bits. See Jacob D. Bekenstein (2008), Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, Scholarpedia.
^ Seth Lloyd (2002), Computational capacity of the universe, Physical Review Letters 88 (23):237901.

[1] so spelled nybble

[alltoomuch-2] "A special report on managing information: All too much". The Economist. 25 February 2010. Retrieved 4 March 2010.

[3] Hickey, Thom (OCLC Chief Scientist) (21 June 2005). "Entire Library of Congress". Outgoing. Retrieved 5 May 2010.

[4] 25 petabyte on Megaupload. Retrieved 16 February 2012

[5] $\scriptstyle {\frac {1}{300}}$ J K⁻¹

[6] ttp://www.tmrfindia.org/ijcsa/V2I29.pdf

[7] "Internet data heads for 500bn gigabytes", The Guardian, 18 May 2009. Retrieved on 23 April 2010.

[8] 1 J K⁻¹. Equivalent to 1/(k ln 2) bits, where k is Boltzmann's constant

[9] Equivalent to 5.74 J K⁻¹. Standard molar entropy of graphite.

[10] Equivalent to 69.95 J K⁻¹. Standard molar entropy of water.

[11] Equivalent to 108.9 J K⁻¹

[12] Equivalent to 146.33 J K⁻¹. Standard molar entropy of neon. An experimental value, see [1] for a theoretical calculation.

[13] Given as 10⁴² erg K⁻¹ in Bekenstein (1973), Black Holes and Entropy, Physical Review D 7 2338

[14] Entropy = $\scriptstyle Ac^{3}/4G\hbar$ in nats, with $A=16\pi G^{2}M^{2}/c^{4}$ for a Schwartzschild black hole. 1 nat = 1/ln(2) bits. See Jacob D. Bekenstein (2008), Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, Scholarpedia.

[15] Seth Lloyd (2002), Computational capacity of the universe, Physical Review Letters 88 (23):237901.

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[15]

v t e Orders of magnitude
Quantity	Acceleration Angular momentum Area Bit rate Charge Computing Current Data Density Energy / Energy density Entropy Force Frequency Illuminance Length Luminance Magnetic moment Magnetic field Mass Molarity Numbers Power Pressure Probability Radiation Sound pressure Specific heat capacity Speed Temperature Torque Time Voltage Volume
See also	Back-of-the-envelope calculation Best-selling electronic devices Fermi problem Powers of 10 and decades 10th 100th 1000000th Metric (SI) prefix Macroscopic scale Microscopic scale
Related	Astronomical system of units Earth's location in the Universe Cosmic View (1957 book) To the Moon and Beyond (1964 film) Cosmic Zoom (1968 film) Powers of Ten (1968 and 1977 films) Cosmic Voyage (1996 documentary) The Scale of the Universe (2010) Cosmic Eye (2012)
Category

See also

References