Gigabytes (GB), Terabytes (TB), and Petabytes (PB) are all units of digital storage capacity. Here’s how they compare:
- 1 gigabyte (GB) is equal to 1,000 megabytes (MB) or 1 billion bytes. It is commonly used to measure the storage capacity of personal computers, smartphones, and other devices. A typical smartphone might have 64GB or 128GB of storage capacity, while a typical laptop or desktop computer might have 256GB or 512GB of storage capacity.
- 1 terabyte (TB) is equal to 1,000 gigabytes (GB) or 1 trillion bytes. It is commonly used to measure the storage capacity of servers, large databases, and other enterprise-level systems. A typical external hard drive might have 2TB or 4TB of storage capacity.
- 1 petabyte (PB) is equal to 1,000 terabytes (TB) or 1 quadrillion bytes. It is commonly used to measure the storage capacity of large data centers, scientific research institutions, and other organizations with massive amounts of data. A single PB can store approximately 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with text.
To put it in perspective, a 1GB storage capacity is enough to store approximately 250-300 high-resolution photos, 200-250 songs, or 30 minutes of HD video. A 1TB storage capacity can hold about 250,000 songs, 250 HD movies, or 1,000 hours of HD video. And a 1PB storage capacity is equal to about 13.3 years of HD-quality video or 200,000 years of music.