Byte (B)
A byte, represented by the symbol B, is made up of 8 bits and serves as a standard unit for digital information. The idea of the byte was established in the 1950s when early computers needed a consistent way to group bits to encode characters like letters and numbers. As the fundamental element for organizing and storing digital data, bytes are used in everything from documents to multimedia files. Today, the byte is the universal reference point for measuring memory, storage capacities, and file sizes, forming the foundation for all larger digital units.
Gigabyte (GB)
The gigabyte, symbol GB, represents 1,000,000,000 bytes in decimal, though in binary it is often approximated as 1,073,741,824 bytes (1,024 MiB). The unit was introduced in the 1980s as personal computers and hard drives increased capacity. Gigabytes measure larger data volumes, including software, multimedia, and storage devices, and became the standard for consumer storage, networking, and cloud computing as a scale between megabytes and terabytes.