Terabyte
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A terabyte (derived from the SI prefix tera-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one trillion (one long scale billion) bytes. It is commonly abbreviated TB.
Because of irregularities in using the binary prefix in the definition and usage of the kilobyte, the exact number in common practice could be either one of the following:
- 1 000 000 000 000 bytes - 10004 or 1012.
- 1 099 511 627 776 bytes - 10244 or 240. This capacity may be expressed unambiguously as a tebibyte.
The prefix "tera" originates from the Greek word teras meaning 'monster'.
Terabytes in use
- A 'typical' video store may contain about 8 terabytes of video data.
- The books in the the U.S. Library of Congress contain approximately 20 terabytes of text.
Personal computers containing a terabyte or more of storage space have recently become possible using combinations of high-capacity mass-market hard drives. As of April 2005, common commercial hard drives exceeded 400 gigabytes in size, so storage capacity totalling a terabyte or more can be reached using as few as 2 or 3 hard disks, at a street cost of as little as USD $450, down from over USD $1000 in 2003. (source: www.newegg.com)
Terabyte is also the name of a Macromedia Flash web design company. Terabyte (http://www.terabyte.co.nz/) is based in Auckland, New Zealand.