Acquisition, recording, organization, retrieval, display, and dissemination of information. Today the term usually refers to computer-based operations. Information processing consists of locating and capturing information, using software to manipulate it into a desired form, and outputting the data. An Internet search engine is an example of an information-processing tool, as is any sophisticated information-retrieval system. Seealso data processing.

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Process of disguising information as “ciphertext,” or data that will be unintelligible to an unauthorized person. Decryption is the process of converting ciphertext back into its original format, sometimes called plaintext (see cryptography). Computers encrypt data by applying an algorithm to a block of data. A personal key known only to the message's transmitter and intended receiver is used to control the encryption. Well-designed keys are almost impregnable. A key 16 characters long selected at random from 256 ASCII characters could take far longer than the 15-billion-year age of the universe to decode, assuming the perpetrator attempted 100 million different key combinations per second. Symmetric encryption requires the same key for both encryption and decryption. Asymmetric encryption, or public-key cryptography, requires a pair of keys, one for encryption and one for decryption.

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Process of reducing the amount of data needed for storage or transmission of a given piece of information (text, graphics, video, sound, etc.), typically by use of encoding techniques. Data compression is characterized as either lossy or lossless depending on whether some data is discarded or not, respectively. Lossless compression scans the data for repetitive sequences or regions and replaces them with a single “token.” For example, every occurrence of the word the or region with the colour red might be converted to $. ZIP and GIF are the most common lossless formats for text and graphics, respectively. Lossy compression is frequently used for photographs, video, and sound files where the loss of some detail is generally unnoticeable. JPEG and MPEG (see MP3) are the most common lossy formats.

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Collection of data or information organized for rapid search and retrieval, especially by a computer. Databases are structured to facilitate storage, retrieval, modification, and deletion of data in conjunction with various data-processing operations. A database consists of a file or set of files that can be broken down into records, each of which consists of one or more fields. Fields are the basic units of data storage. Users retrieve database information primarily through queries. Using keywords and sorting commands, users can rapidly search, rearrange, group, and select the field in many records to retrieve or create reports on particular aggregates of data according to the rules of the database management system being used.

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This is a list of orders of magnitude for data (or information), measured in bits. This article assumes a descriptive attitude towards terminology, reflecting actual usage by the speakers of the language. That means three things:

1. A group of 8 bits in a computer is called a byte. A byte is the most common unit of measurement for computer architectures (megabytes, mebibytes, gigabytes, gibibytes, et cetera).
2. In architectures that are 16-bit or 32-bit, which operate on 2 or 4 bytes per clock cycle, that chunk of data is sometimes called a word, although such usage is typically limited to programmers and engineers.
3. 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 kibibyte and 8000 bits are a kilobyte.

1. 1 kB (kilobyte) = 8000 bits
2. 1 KiB (kibibyte) = 8192 bits
3. Therefore 1 KiB = 1.024 kB = 1024 bytes

Orders of magnitude (data)

Binary		Decimal		Item
Factor	Term	Factor	Term
20	bit	100	bit	1 bit – 0 or 1, false or true, Low or High
21				2 bits – a crumb (rarely used term)
				3 bits – the size of an octal digit
22	nibble (also spelled nybble)			4 bits – (aka "nibble" or "semioctet", rarely used) the size of a hexadecimal digit
				5 bits – the size of code points in the Baudot code, used in telex communication
				6 bits – the size of code points in the Braille code, a tactile writing system for the blind
				7 bits – the size of code points in the ASCII character set
23	byte			8 bits – (a.k.a. "octet") on many computer architectures. – Equivalent to 1 "word" on 8-bit computers (Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore 64, et al). – the "word size" (instruction length) for 8-bit console systems including: Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System
		101	decabit	10 bits – minimum length to store a single group of 3 decimal digits – minimum bit length to store a single byte with error-correcting memory – minimum frame length to transmit a single byte with asynchronous serial protocols
				12 bits – wordlength of the PDP-8 of Digital Equipment Corporation (built from 1965 -1990)
24				16 bits – in many programming languages, the size of an integer capable of holding 65,536 different values – Equivalent to 1 "word" on 16-bit computers (IBM PC) – the "word size" (instruction length) for 16-bit console systems including: Super Nintendo, Mattel Intellivision
25				32 bits (4 bytes) – size of an integer capable of holding 4,294,967,296 different values – size of an IEEE 754 single-precision floating point number – size of addresses in IPv4, the current Internet protocol – Equivalent to 1 "word" on 32-bit computers (Commodore Amiga, Apple Macintosh, Pentium-based PC). – the "word size" (instruction length) for various console systems including: Sega Genesis, PlayStation, GameCube, Xbox, Wii
				36 bits – size of word on Univac 1100-series computers and Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-10
				56 bits (7 bytes) – cipher strength of the DES encryption standard
26				64 bits (8 bytes) – size of an integer capable of holding 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 different values – size of an IEEE 754 double-precision floating point number – Equivalent to 1 "word" on 64-bit computers (x86-64 PCs and Macintoshes). – the "word size" (instruction length) for 64-bit console systems including: Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360
				80 bits (10 bytes) – size of an extended precision floating point number, for intermediate calculations that can be performed in floating point units of most processors of the x86 family
		102	hectobit	100 bits
27				128 bits (16 bytes) – size of addresses in IPv6, the emerging Internet protocol – minimum cipher strength of the Rijndael and AES encryption standards, and of the widely used MD5 cryptographic message digest algorithm
				160 bits – maximum key length of the SHA-1, standard Tiger (hash), and Tiger2 cryptographic message digest algorithms
28				256 bits (32 bytes) – minimum key length for the recommended strong cryptographic message digests as of 2004
29				512 bits (64 bytes) – maximum key length for the standard strong cryptographic message digests in 2004
		103	kilobit	1000 bits
210	kibibit			1024 bits (128 bytes)
				1288 bits – approximate maximum capacity of a standard magnetic stripe card
211				2048 bits (256 bytes)
212				4096 bits (512 bytes) – typical sector size, and minimum space allocation unit on computer storage volumes, with most file systems
				4704 bits (588 bytes) – uncompressed single-channel frame length in standard MPEG audio (75 frames per second and per channel), with medium quality 8-bit sampling at 44,100 Hz (or 16-bit sampling at 22,050 Hz)
				8000 bits (103 bytes) – one kilobyte
213	kibibyte			8192 bits (1,024 bytes)
				9408 bits (1,176 bytes) – uncompressed single-channel frame length in standard MPEG audio (75 frames per second and per channel), with standard 16-bit sampling at 44,100 Hz
		104		15,350 bits – one screen of data displayed on an 8-bit monochrome text console (80x24)
214				16,384 bits (2 kibibytes)
				20,000 bits – approximate amount of information on a sheet of single-spaced typewritten paper
215				32,768 bits (4 kibibytes)
216				65,536 bits (8 kibibytes)
		105		100,000 bits
217				131,072 bits (16 kibibytes)
				150 kilobits – approximate size of this article as of 20 April 2007
218				262,144 bits (32 kibibytes)
219				524,288 bits (64 kibibytes)
		106	megabit	1,000,000 bits
220	mebibit			1,048,576 bits (128 kibibytes)
				1,978,560 bits – a one-page, standard-resolution black-and-white fax (1728 × 1145 pixels)
221				2,097,152 bits (256 kibibytes)
				4,147,200 bits – one frame of uncompressed NTSC DVD video (720 × 480 × 12 bpp Y'CbCr)
222				4,194,304 bits (512 kibibytes)
				4,976,640 bits – one frame of uncompressed PAL DVD video (720 × 576 × 12 bpp Y'CbCr)
				8,343,400 bits – one "typical" sized Anthomyiidae sp. 1 (aka).jpg with reasonably good quality (1024 × 768 pixels).
223	mebibyte			8,388,608 bits (1024 kibibytes)
		107		11,520,000 bits – capacity of a lower-resolution computer monitor (as of 2006), 800 × 600 pixels, 24 bpp
				11,796,480 bits – capacity of a 3.5 in floppy disk, colloquially known as 1.44 megabyte but actually 1.44 × 1000 × 1024 bytes
224				16,777,216 bits (2 mebibytes)
				25 megabits – amount of data in a typical color slide
				32,582,657 bits – size of the largest known Mersenne prime: All of its bits are 1.
225				33,554,432 bits (4 mebibytes)
				55,296,000 bits – capacity of a high-resolution computer monitor as of 2007, 1920 × 1200 pixels, 24 bpp
				50–100 megabits – amount of information in a typical phone book
226
		108
				67,108,864 bit (8 mebibytes)
227				134,217,728 bits (16 mebibytes)
				150 megabits – amount of data in a large foldout map
228				268,435,456 (32 mebibytes)
				423,360,000 bits: a five-minute audio recording, in CDDA quality
229				536,870,912 bits (64 mebibytes)
		109	gigabit	1,000,000,000 bits
230	gibibit			1,073,741,824 bits (128 mebibytes)
231				2,147,483,648 bits (256 mebibytes)
232				4,294,967,296 bits (512 mebibytes)
				5.45 bits (650 mebibytes) – capacity of a regular compact disc
				5.89 bits (702 mebibytes) – capacity of a large regular compact disc
				6.4 bits – capacity of the human genome, 3.2 base pairs (Each pair encodes two bits of data.)
233	gibibyte			8,589,934,592 bits (1024 mebibytes)
		1010		10,000,000,000 bits
234				17,179,869,184 bits (2 gibibytes)
				2.16 bits (2.7 gigabytes) – size of the English Wikipedia without images (TomeRaider_database)
235				34,359,738,368 bits (4 gibibytes)
				4.04 bits (4.7 gigabytes) – capacity of a single-layer, single-sided DVD
236				68,719,476,736 bits (8 gibibytes)
		1011		100,000,000,000 bits
237				137,438,953,472 bits (16 gibibytes)
				1.46 bits (17 gigabytes) – capacity of a double-sided, dual-layered DVD
				2.15 bits (25 gigabytes) – capacity of a single-sided, single-layered 12-cm Blu-ray disc
238				274,877,906,944 bits (32 gibibytes)
239				549,755,813,888 bits (64 gibibytes)
		1012	terabit	1,000,000,000,000 bits (125 gigabytes) – approximate size of all Wikimedia projects in all languages.
240	tebibit			1,099,511,627,776 bits (128 gibibytes) more than 137 gigabytes
				1.6 bits (200 gigabytes) – capacity of a hard disk that would be considered average as of 2008
241				2,199,023,255,552 bits (256 gibibytes)
				(approximately) 4.12 bits – as of 2002, data of π to the largest number of digits ever calculated (1.24)
242				4,398,046,511,104 bits (512 gibibytes)
243	tebibyte			8,796,093,022,208 bits (1024 gibibytes)
		1013		10,000,000,000,000 bits (1.25 terabytes) – capacity of a human being's functional memory, according to Raymond Kurzweil in The Singularity Is Near, p. 126
244				17,592,186,044,416 bits (2 tebibytes)
245				35,184,372,088,832 bits (4 tebibytes)
246				70,368,744,177,664 bits (8 tebibytes)
		1014		100,000,000,000,000 bits
247				140,737,488,355,328 bits (16 tebibytes)
				1.5 bits (18.75 terabytes) – amount of text in the Library of Congress, if it were all digitized
248				281,474,976,710,656 bits (32 tebibytes)
249				562,949,953,421,312 bits (64 tebibytes)
		1015	petabit	1,000,000,000,000,000 bits
250	pebibit			1,125,899,906,842,624 bits (128 tebibytes)
				2.4 bits (300 terabytes) – size of the Internet Archive in 2004
251				2,251,799,813,685,248 bits (256 tebibytes)
252				4,503,599,627,370,496 bits (512 tebibytes)
				8,000,000,000,000,000 bits (1015 bytes) – one petabyte
253	pebibyte			9,007,199,254,740,992 bits (1024 tebibytes)
		1016		10,000,000,000,000,000 bits
254				18,014,398,509,481,984 bits (2 pebibytes)
255				36,028,797,018,963,968 bits (4 pebibytes)
				4.5 bits (5.625 petabytes) – estimated hard drive space in Google's server farm in 2004
256				72,057,594,037,927,936 bits (8 pebibytes)
		1017		100,000,000,000,000,000 bits
257				144,115,188,075,855,872 bits (16 pebibytes)
258				288,230,376,151,711,744 bits (32 pebibytes)
259				576,460,752,303,423,488 bits (64 pebibytes)
				8 , the storage capacity of the fictional Star Trek character Data
		1018	exabit	1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
260	exbibit			1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bits (128 pebibytes)
				1.6 bits (200 petabytes) – total amount of printed material in the world
261				2,305,843,009,213,693,952 bits (256 pebibytes)
262				4,611,686,018,427,387,904 bits (512 pebibytes)
263	exbibyte			9,223,372,036,854,775,808 bits (1024 pebibytes)
		1019		10,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
264				18,446,744,073,709,551,616, bits (2 exbibytes)
265				36,893,488,147,419,103,232, bits (4 exbibytes)
266				73,786,976,294,838,206,464, bits (8 exbibytes)
		1020		100,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
267				147,573,952,589,676,412,928 bits (16 exbibytes)
268				295,147,905,179,352,825,856 bits (32 exbibytes)
269				590,295,810,358,705,651,712 bits (64 exbibytes)
		1021	zettabit	1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
270	zebibit			1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bits (128 exbibytes)
271				2,361,183,241,434,822,606,848 bits (256 exbibytes)
272				4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 bits (512 exbibytes)
273	zebibyte			9,444,732,965,739,290,427,392 bits (1024 exbibytes)
		1022		10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits
				1.8 bits (2.25 zettabytes) – amount of information that can be stored in 1 gram of DNA

External links

• a collection of estimates of the quantities of data contained by the various media
• a humorous take on the different ways of specifying quantities of data