1 terabyte
1 TBData · definition
Decimal kB, MB and GB use powers of 1,000. KiB, MiB and GiB use powers of 1,024. The content of a file depends on encoding and compression.
Data & storage
Just how much data is 1 terabyte?
Archives
1 TB
BYTES OF DATA
1 terabyte
Decimal kB, MB and GB use powers of 1,000.
1 TBData
0
1 TB drive
A one-terabyte drive is a digital storage device capable of holding large amounts of computer data, such as documents, media and software.
1 TBData
0
Bar length represents bytes. The physical sizes of devices are schematic; encoding and compression affect file sizes.
A little perspective
1 terabyte is approximately equal to the data size of a 1 TB drive.
Measurements, assumptions & sources +
1 terabyte
Data: 1 TB; definition.
Decimal kB, MB and GB use powers of 1,000. KiB, MiB and GiB use powers of 1,024. The content of a file depends on encoding and compression.
1 TB drive
Data: 1 TB; example.
One trillion advertised bytes: approximately 931 GiB. This is not a loss of physical storage.
Defined examples — our methodology
The marked data is calibrated. Unmeasured illustration details are representative.
Measurement details
Why these numbers?
Compare 1 terabyte with the data size of a 1 TB drive. The notes below explain how each value was chosen.
1 TB drive
1 TBData · example
One trillion advertised bytes: approximately 931 GiB. This is not a loss of physical storage.
- Comparing
- Data ↔ Data
- Relative size
- 1 terabyte is approximately equal to the data size of a 1 TB drive.
How to read the visual
The diagram uses the recorded measurements. Details outside the marked spans do not set the scale.
- The data size of a 1 TB drive: This is an illustrative comparison value, not a claim that every example is the same.
Data size depends on encoding and compression; decimal GB and binary GiB are different units.
1 × 10¹² Bbytes
1,000 GBgigabytes
931.32 GiBgibibytes
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