CP's Computer Help

Someone recently asked what is the conversion between megabytes and gigabytes?  Here is the binary calculation...

1 Byte is a character, number, or symbol (comprised of 8 bits)
1 Kilobyte is 1024 bytes
1 Megabyte is 1024 kilobytes
1 Gigabyte is 1024 megabytes
1 Terabyte is 1024 gigabytes
1 Petabyte is 1024 terabytes
1 Exabyte is 1024 petabytes
...this keeps going

When shopping for a memory upgrade or RAM for your computer you might typically purchase two gigabytes, the minimum I would recommend for Windows 7.  Once installed the computer should show that you have 2.00 GB of RAM.  It may show less if an integrated video card in the computer is using some of that memory for your video output.

Right click on computer in the start menu and click properties to see how much RAM you have.


When shopping for a hard drive you should know that the actual size of the hard drive in Windows is smaller than the name that they give it.  For example, my personal computer has a one terabyte hard drive.  That is actually not quite one terabyte but is just over 931 gigabytes. This is because the conversion that the hard drive manufacturers is different.  The hard drive manufacturers use the following decimal format...

1 Kilobyte is 1000 bytes
1 Megabyte is 1000 kilobytes
1 Gigabyte is 1000 Megabytes
1 Terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes
...and so on

Jordan, I hope this answers your question.  Thank you for your inquiry.

Todd Siefert
CP's Computer Help