What is Gigabyte?
A '''gigabyte''' ('''GB'''), sometimes abbreviated as a ''gig'', is a [[unit of measurement]] in [[computer]]s and similar [[Electronics|electronic devices]]. At first it meant exactly 1 [[1,000,000,000|billion]] [[byte]]s, usually referring to the number of bytes in a [[computer]] [[hard drive]]. Its meaning gradually changed over time, so that today it is often used to mean 1,073,741,824 (2<sup>30</sup>) [[byte]]s, especially when referring to the random access memory ([[RAM]]) of a modern computer. ==Definitions== Nowadays, international standards bodies say a gigabyte should only be used to mean exactly 1 billion [[byte]]s, and that [[gibibyte]] is a better name for 1,073,741,824 bytes. In everyday use, people use ''gigabyte'' to mean 1,073,741,824 bytes when talking about computer memory and 1,000,000,000 bytes when talking about computer disk space. One thousand gigabytes make one [[terabyte]]. ==Applications== This [[measurement]] is often used when measuring the capacity of [[Random access memory|computer memory]], [[hard drive]]s, or other storage [[device]]s. {{tech-stub}} [[Category:Computer science]] [[Category:Units of information]] [[Category:Information technology]]