Take a Byte Out of Storage

When I started working in technology and information systems 22 years ago, my job entailed helping people copy their computer files to an external disk in order for their data to be safe (in case their hard drive ever crashed). In those days (the late 80's), we copied our files to a floppy disk. The disk was capable of holding 1, 440, 000 bytes or what you see abbreviated as: 1.44 MB

Now flash forward to 2009. I'm shopping for holiday gifts and one item on my list is an external hard drive. Staples has a Seagate desktop external drive capable of holding 1,500,000,000,000 bytes or abbreviated as: 1.5 TB

So I thought I'd dedicate today's blog to data storage and how many bytes you get per disk. First let's discuss the abbreviations for disk capacity:

1 megabye (MB) = 1 million bytes
1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes
1 terabyte (TB) = 1 trillion bytes

When shopping for computers, either desktop, laptop or netbook, there usually is a hard drive built in. This storage capacity ranges from 900 MB (older computers) to 2 TB (newer computers).

If you are using a Windows PC, you can go to "My computer" on your desktop then right click and go to properties and then a screen will pop up and it will tell you how many bytes your hard drive has.

If you are using a MAC, you can go to your "Finder" then control-click on the hard drive icon and choose Get Info from the pop-up and it will tell you how many bytes your hard drive has.

An easy way to backup or make a copy of your photos, documents, presentations, fliers, brochures, etc., is with a USB drive (also known as flash drive, jump drive, thumb drive). A typical USB drive holds data in multiples of 1 GB. You can purchase a 4 GB drive on sale for approximately $15. An 8 GB drive is approximately $20. Look for manufacturer rebates and sales. You can find them in Staples, Radio Shack, Best Buy, Walmart, or online at amazon.com.



If you are storing photos taken with your digital camera, most likely they are stored on a memory card. A typical memory card holds either 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB or 32 GB. Read the instructions that come with your digital camera or camcorder because not all memory cards fit in all camera devices.





A typical CD-R (the type of disk you purchase to 'burn' a music CD for the home or car stereo) holds 700 MB. Depending on how the songs are recorded, this disk can hold approximately 100 minutes worth of songs.




A typical DVD-R (the type of disk you purchase to 'burn' a video or home movie DVD for the home DVD player) holds 4.7 GB. Depending on how the videos are recorded, this disk can hold approximately 2 hours of very good quality DVD-Video.



To learn how to backup your data to any of these disks, call The PC Teacher at 201-327-0830 or email me at bcoyne@thepcteacher.com . Gift certificates available in multiples of $30. Give the gift of joyful learning this holiday season.

www.thepcteacher.com