Bit and Byte

A bit (binary digit) is the smallest unit of data in a computer and has one of two values, 0 or 1. A byte is a group of 8 bits and can represent 256 different values (0 to 255), enough to store one character of text in encodings such as ASCII.

Storage and memory are measured in bytes: a kilobyte (KB) is 1,000 bytes, a megabyte (MB) 1,000 KB and a gigabyte (GB) 1,000 MB; the binary units KiB, MiB and GiB use multiples of 1,024. Network speeds are usually given in bits per second (for example Mbps), so 8 Mbps is about 1 megabyte per second.