You must have come across these abbreviations often, GB and MB, in your daily lives. If you are a smartphone user, which most of us are, you must have checked how many GBs or MBs your phone contains. Or perhaps, before purchasing a new phone, you want to know how much file capacity your phone can take. Nontechnical people often get confused: are megabytes or gigabytes bigger?
Megabytes (MBs) and GBs (GigaBytes) are ways of measuring how much data your electronic device accommodates in terms of digital storage and computer memory. Bytes are units of measurement wherein 1 byte is equal to 8 bits. Bytes are used to represent memory storage. Multiple bytes are combined to form bigger units of measurement, such as megabytes and gigabytes. In general, computer storage is measured in multiples of bytes. In this blog, we will discuss and compare GB vs MB and more digital storage measuring units. </p>
What is a Megabyte?
Megabyte, or MB as it is more commonly referred to, is a measuring unit that is utilized to estimate data storage. A megabyte is measured in quantities that are equal to a million bytes because the term ‘mega’ denotes a factor of one million. A megabyte comprises 1024 kilobytes. With storage capacities having been increased, between gigabyte vs megabyte, MB is less frequently used as storage and memory as compared to before. Now, storage capacities of computing devices are usually measured in gigabytes or terabytes. Regardless, the megabyte is still in use where smaller measurements are needed, for example, when referring to file size and disk usage.
Megabytes are sometimes used to refer to data transfer rates, which are measured in megabytes per second. Megabytes (MBps) are not to be confused with Megabits (Mbps). Both units are subject to confusion, usually because of similar seeming abbreviations. The features of both Megabytes and Megabits are compiled in the table below, highlighting their differences.
Megabyte vs Megabit
|
Feature |
Megabyte |
Megabit |
|
Abbreviation |
MB |
Mb |
|
Size in bits (decimal) |
8,000,000 bits |
1,000,000 bits |
|
Size in bits (binary) |
8,388,608 bits |
1,048 576 bits |
|
Common use |
Describes data storage and file size |
Describes data transfer rate (especially over networks) |
|
Used in |
USB drives, hard drives, SSDs, etc |
Internet Speed (eg. 100 Mbps internet) |
|
Conversion |
1MB= 8Mb |
1Mb=0.125MB |
|
Transfer rate example |
400 MBps |
400 Mbps |
|
Common confusion |
Often mistakenly written as Mbps |
Often confused with MBps |
What is a Gigabyte?
When understanding MB vs GB, one thing is the same: both are used to describe storage capacity. Although a gigabyte is a bigger unit than a megabyte.
A gigabyte is a data unit that is equivalent to approximately 1 billion bytes of data, which means that the device can store 1 billion bytes of data. It is a unit of digital information storage capacity, commonly used in technology, computing, programming and communications. The unit gigabyte is broadly used to represent the amount of data stored or the storage potential of the storage device.
A gigabyte of data has the power to store a number of PDF files, hundreds of photos or even a long-duration high-quality video. An average smartphone consists of a minimum of 32 gigabytes of storage, while the highest is 256 gigabytes. A GB is also used to measure internet data usage. Internet service providers often provide data plans with certain limits, measured in gigabytes.
What is the difference between a Gigabyte and a Megabyte?
The comparison between MB vs GB comes down to size. A megabyte is equal to 1,024 kilobytes (KB), whereas a gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes (MB), which indicates that one gigabyte is 1,024 times larger than one megabyte. In daily life, megabytes are mainly used to describe smaller file sizes such as documents, images or music track files. In contrast, gigabytes are used for extensive files or storage capacities such as high-definition (HD) videos, applications, or software programs as a whole. It is essential to understand the difference between MB and GB in order to manage digital storage, download files and assess data usage. The question arises: are megabytes or gigabytes bigger? To find out, the table below summarizes the difference between megabytes and gigabytes.
MB vs GB
|
Megabyte (MB) |
Gigabyte (GB) |
|
1 MB= 1024 KB |
1 GB= 1024 MB |
|
Smaller than GB |
Larger than MB |
|
1 MB= 1,000,000 bytes (decimal) and 1,048,576 bytes (binary) |
1 GB= 1,000,000 bytes (decimal) and 1,073,741,824 bytes (binary) |
|
Used to measure file sizes |
Used to measure storage capacities |
|
Used for medium-sized digital content |
Used for large-scale digital storage |
|
Example: A high-resolution JPEG image holds about 1-5 megabytes |
Example= A standard DVD holds 4.7 GB of data |
|
A CD’s capacity is measured in MB |
Hard drives and Flash drives are measured in GB or TB (Terabytes) |
|
Stands between kilobyte and gigabyte in the data-size hierarchy, |
Stands between megabyte and terabyte in the data-size hierarchy. |
Conclusion
In summary, understanding computer memory is quite important. Both MB and GB are used to measure digital data. When comparing megabytes vs gigabytes, A megabyte is a smaller unit typically used for file sizes, while a gigabyte is a larger unit often used to measure storage capacities, such as those of hard drives and flash drives. Therefore, understanding the difference is vital for the accurate estimation of data requirements as well as device capabilities. If you have further queries on the difference between MB and GB, do not hesitate to reach out to us at Shopiluxe IT Hardware.
