Orders of magnitude (data) - Definition and Overview

This is a list of orders of magnitude for data (or information), measured in bits. This article assumes a formal attitude towards terminology. That means two things:

1. A group of 8 bits in a computer is called an octet. A byte is the same for most practical purposes, but does not equal 8 bits on all computer architectures.
2. The decimal prefixes kilo, mega etc. are strictly powers of 10. The powers of 2 are the binary prefixes kibi, mebi etc.

Accordingly, 8192 bits of data are a kibioctet and 8000 bits are a kilooctet.

• 1 bit – True or false.
  • 1.5 bit – Average information entropy per character in English text.
  • 4 bits – A semioctet or nibble. The size of a hexadecimal digit.
  • 5 bits – Size of code points in the Baudot code, used in telex communication.
  • 6 bits – Size of code points in the Braille code, a tactile writing system for the blind.
  • 7 bits – Size of code points in the ASCII character set.
  • 8 bits – An octet. Equivalent to a byte on many computer architectures.
• 10 bits
  • 16 bits – In many programming languages, the size of an integer capable of holding 65,536 different values.
  • 32 bits – Size of an integer capable of holding 4,294,967,296 different values.
  • 32 bits – Size of an IEEE 754 single-precision floating point number.
  • 32 bits – Size of addresses in IPv4, the current Internet protocol.
  • 56 bits – Cipher strength of the DES encryption standard.
  • 64 bits – Size of an integer capable of holding 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 different values.
  • 64 bits – Size of an IEEE 754 double-precision floating point number.
• 10² bits
  • 128 bits – Size of addresses in IPv6, the coming Internet protocol.
  • 128 bits – Minimum cipher strength of the Rijndael and AES encryption standards.
• 10³ bits – One kilobit.
  • 1,024 bits (2¹⁰ bits) – One kibibit.
  • 8,000 bits (10³ octets) – One kilooctet.
  • 8,192 bits (2¹³ bits, 2¹⁰ octets) – One kibioctet.
• 10⁴ bits
• 10⁵ bits
• 10⁶ bits – One megabit.
  • 1,048,576 bits (2²⁰ bits) – One mebibit.
  • 8,000,000 bits (10⁶ octets) – One megaoctet.
  • 8,388,608 bits (2²³ bits, 2²⁰ octets) – One mebioctet.
• 10⁷ bits
  • 11,796,480 bits – Capacity of a 3.5" floppy disk, colloquially known as 1.44 megabyte.
  • 24,036,583 bits – Size of the largest known Mersenne prime. All 24,036,583 bits are 1.
• 10⁸ bits
• 10⁹ bits – One gigabit.
  • 1,073,741,824 bits (2³⁰ bits) – One gibibit.
  • 8,000,000,000 bits (10⁹ octets) – One gigaoctet.
  • 5.45 × 10⁹ bits (650 mebioctets) – Capacity of a regular compact disc.
  • 8,589,934,592 bits (2³³ bits, 2³⁰ octets) – One gibioctet.
• 10¹⁰ bits
  • 1.28 × 10¹⁰ bits – Capacity of the human genome, 3.2 billion base pairs.
• 10¹¹ bits
  • 1.46 × 10¹¹ bits (17 gibioctets) – Capacity of a double-sided, dual-layered DVD.
  • (approximately) 4.12 × 10¹² bits (515 gibioctets) – As of 2002, data of pi to the largest number of digits ever calculated (1.24 trillion).
• 10¹² bits – One terabit.
  • 1.6 &times 10¹² bits (200 gigaoctets) – Capacity of a hard disk that would be considered moderately large in 2004.
• 10¹³ bits
• 10¹⁴ bits
  • 1.5 × 10¹⁴ bits (17 teraoctets) – Amount of information in the Library of Congress, if it were all digitized.
• 10¹⁵ bits – One petabit.
  • 2.4 × 10¹⁵ bits (300 teraoctets) – Size of the Internet Archive in 2004.
• 10¹⁶ bits
  • 4.5 × 10¹⁶ bits (5 petaoctets) – Estimated hard drive space in Google's server farm in 2004.
• 10¹⁷ bits
• 10¹⁸ bits – One exabit.
  • 1.6 × 10¹⁸ bits (200 petaoctets) – Total amount of printed material in the world.
• 10¹⁹ bits
• 10²⁰ bits
• 10²¹ bits – One zettabit.