Talk:Data sizes and speeds

Data sizes and speeds

The whole document would benefit from a clear description of decimal and binary prefixes. It would also help to use the SI standard units (http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html) or at least mention that for readebilty these are expicitly not used. Theking2 (discuss • contribs) 06:55, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the treatment of decimal vs binary multipliers is unclear. New prefixes and new standards initially make the situation still more confusing. I've been initially confused, then skeptical, regarding the new prefixes, but contrary to my expectations they seem to be getting adopted. More surprisingly, there seems to be some support for the principle of limiting the use of the binary quantities to situations where they are relevant. For example my file manager reports the size of a 14,355,162 byte file as 14.4 MB rather than 13.7 MB (or MiB). I'm considering having a go at fixing up the whole page, but I would value some feedback on whether to go ahead with representing the IEC/ISO standard as the norm.--Alkhowarizmi (discuss • contribs) 11:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

1024kB squared

1024kB squared would be weird, I'm thinking 1T(B²)...

Word

The size of a word has conventionally been set at 32 bits (4 bytes) not two bytes (16 bits).

KB

The section on Kilobyte is badly worded and does not truly explain the difference between KB (1000) and KiB (1024) in an understandable and correct way.

Actually, 1000 bytes is 1 kB. KB is either plain wrong, or follows a convention (due to, or propagated by O'Reilly?) of using KB for the binary kilobyte. However, awareness that prefixes are case-sensitive is not widespread, and it's not uncommon to see brag sheets claiming lots of mB. (What would a millibyte look like - anything like a square byte?)--Alkhowarizmi (discuss • contribs) 11:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Byte

It's just not true that a Byte has to be 8 bits. 8 bits is an Octet, but there are 12 bits/Byte and 13 bits/byte (and way more) other machines out there.

GigaByte

The wording in this part is quit confusing. There is only one "actual" size of a harddisk. Theking2 (discuss • contribs) 06:52, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's quite confusing! On my reading, the wording (then as now) doesn't imply more than one "actual" size. However it does say (absurdly) that manufacturers' sales pitch understates the "true" capacity, where it should say overstates. I was going to correct this, but wouldn't want to do that without doing something about that "true" problem, and I haven't decided how. I'm more inclined to leave it for a major revision of the whole page.--Alkhowarizmi (discuss • contribs) 11:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Provide everyday size references

It may be helpful to provide "everyday" size references to provide the student with some sense of scale. How many bytes is: a number, a natural language word, a natural language sentence, a book, or encyclopedia? How big is a CD, a DVD, photo image, mp3 song, or a YouTube video? How much data does Google store? How many bits is a DNA molecule? Thanks!