how many bytes are in a mega byte?

Question

hmmm.

Answer 1

LOL so many different answers the asker must be confused which one is the correct one, while actually the first answer is already correct.

1MB = 1024KB
1KB = 1024B
=> 1MB = 1024 x 1024 = 1,048,576 bytes

Answer 2

"mega" = million.

You have seen several answers. A few of them are correct. You'll be surprised at which ones...

One of the numbers was 1,048,576. This is correct.

Another number was 1,000,000. This is ALSO correct.

Finally, one of the answers was 2^20 (two to the twentieth power). This one is correct too.

Confused yet? Early in the days of computing, memories were so small that nobody worried about decimal vs. binary - it wasn't yet a part of the language. So there arose two camps. One said that a megabyte was a million bytes. Hence the 1,000,000 answer. The OTHER camp said, "No, wait, computers work in binary. We need to cast this number in binary. And the closest number was 1,048,576.

This number is also 2^20. You can gain some insight from a very simple rule.

10^3 is approximately equal to 2^10.

Now, 10^3 is 1000. 2^10 is 1024. They are close.

The next number of interest is 2^20 = 1,048,576. Well, let's sanity check that. 2^20 = ( 2^10 ) * ( 2^10 ) - which should approximately equal ( 10^3 ) * ( 10^3 ) = 1,000,000. So far so good.

The next number prefix is Giga. That's 10^9 = 1 billion bytes. OK, 10^9 = ( 10^3 ) * ( 10^3 ) * ( 10^3 ). Which should be about equal to ( 2^10 ) * ( 2^10 ) * ( 2^10 ) = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 - See how it works?

The order is Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera, Peta, Exa - for thousand, million, billion, trillion, quatrillion, etc. etc...
Which is 10^3, 10^6, 10^9, etc. etc.
Which is 2^10, 2^20, 2^30, etc. etc.

Now you should never again get lost in the numbers.

Answer 3

as you can see, the question is quite tricky.

here's the authoritative answer ;)

1 Kilobyte = 1000 byte
1 Megabyte = 1000 * 1000 byte
etc.

Why does everyone here talk about 1024? because computers count in bits, and a bit can have two values. and the closest number with a power of two is 1024, therefore in the computer world
1 Kilobyte = 1024 byte
1 Megabyte = 1024 * 1024 byte

but this is not correct, and therefore new terms were invented:
1 Kibi = 1024 byte
1 Mebi = 1024 * 1024 byte

Since these names sound a bit ridiculous, they are not really used.

Read it here:

Answer 4

2^20 bytes

Answer 5

bit = binary digit
4 bit = 1 nibble
8 bit = 1 byte or word
1024 bytes = 1 KB
1024 KB = 1 MB
1024 MB = 1 GB
1024 GB = TB

Answer 6

2^20

Answer 7

10^12

Answer 8

1024

Answer 9

not a million. it is over a million. one byte is 1024.

Answer 10

one million