Name(s)______Savina Thompson_____________________ STEM 330 Date _____8/25/17_________

Task 1: Bytes and File Sizes

What is a byte? A byte is a unit of data that is 8 bits long. A byte is the standard chunk size for binary
information in most modern computers

Larger Chunks of Data: On modern computers the amount of information we can create and store has
grown so large that we need new units of measurement to describe the size of our data. Use these
websites for your research.

Stanford University - CS 101 - Kilobytes Megabytes Gigabytes:

https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs101/bits-gigabytes.html
Computer Hope - How much is 1 byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc.?
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chspace.htm

Example of File Type or Data Measured in this

Unit Number of Bytes (approx)
Unit

Kilobyte (KB) 1,024 (210) 2 or 3 paragraphs of text

Megabyte (MB) 1,048,576 (220) 4 books (200 pages or 240,000 characters)

Gigabyte (GB) 1,073,741,824 (230) 341 digital pictures (3MB each)

Terabyte (TB) 1,099,511,627,776 (240) 40 (25 GB) Blu-ray Discs

Petabyte (PB) 1,125,899,906,824,624 (250) 239,400 (4.38 GB) DVDs

1,152,921,504,606,846,976
Exabyte (EB)
(260)

How big are the files I use every day? Try to determine the size of files you probably use every day.
You can either research these answers online or check the size of actual files on your computer.
PC/WINDOWS: Right-click and choose Properties
MAC: Ctrl+click and choose Get Info

Size as # of pages, minutes,

File type Size of file in Bytes, KB, MB, GB, etc.
seconds, or dimensions

page of plain text (.txt) About 500 words, or 2500 2500 Bytes, 2.5KB
characters

.jpg image 1280 x 720 155,357 bytes, 151 KB

animated .gif image 499 x 281 296,044 bytes, 289 KB

.pdf file 2 pages 521,314 bytes , 509 KB

Audio file as .mp3 2:45 1,986,560 bytes, 1.89 MB

movie file such as .mov or 9:39 (.mp4) 27,274,446 bytes, 26.0 MB

.mp4 1280 x 720

1
Answer Each and Explain Your Reasoning
1. Al has 600 MB of data. Betty has 2000 MB of data. Will it all fit on Al's 4 GB thumb drive?

All of the data, 2,600 MB, will fit on Als 4 GB thumb drive. Since each GB is 1,024 MB, 4 GB can
hold 4,096 MB of data.

2. Al has 100 small images, each of which is 500 KB. How much space do they take up overall in MB?

Al has 50,000 KB of data. If one MB is 1,024 KB, then Al has 48.8 MB of data.

3. Your classroom security camera is recording the sound inside your classroom for 20 hours as MP3
audio files. About how much data will that be, expressed in GB.

The camera would record 1200 minutes of MP3 audio data. According to the audio file I found, 2.75
minutes of data is 1.89 MB. This would mean that 1200 minutes of mp3 data is 825 MB.

4. A salesperson is trying to sell you a phone that has 16 GB of memory saying, thats enough space to
record an hour of high quality video! This salesperson is probably wrong, but in which direction?
Would you have more than enough memory or not enough?

You would probably have more than enough data to record an hour. Most movie files are around 1 to
3 GB of data (excluding blu-ray and 4k). The mp4 I found would only take up 0.13 GB (60 x 22/9.65)
of space for a full hour. It is uncertain how much of the 16 GB of data is used up by the phones
operating system.

5. Shakespeares complete works have approximately 3.5 million characters. Which is bigger in file
size: Shakespeares complete works stored in plain ASCII text or a 4 minute song on mp3? How
much bigger?

Shakespeares complete works will take up 3.42 MB ( 3,500,000 x 2.5/2500 x 1/1024) and a four
minute mp3 will take up 2.75 MB (4 x 1.89/2.75). They differ by 0.67 MB.

6. Assume your Internet connection can transmit 1 million bits per second. Approximately how long
would it take you to download 1 Terabyte of data

8 x 240 bits of data will require 102 days to download at a rate of 106 bits per second. To find this
answer, I divided the amount of bits by 1 million and then converted the seconds it took into days.