Terabyte (TB)
The terabyte, symbolized as TB, equals 1,000,000,000,000 bytes in decimal (approximately 1,024 GB in binary). It emerged in the 1990s as storage systems, databases, and servers experienced exponential growth. Terabytes are used to measure hard drives, enterprise storage, data centers, and cloud services. With the rise of big data, video streaming, and high-resolution imaging, the terabyte has become a practical unit for both consumers and professionals. Its adoption enables comprehension of massive digital storage in manageable terms.
Tebibyte (TiB)
The tebibyte, symbol TiB, equals 1,099,511,627,776 bytes (1,024 GiB) and was introduced by the IEC in 1998. This binary unit provides precision for storage systems, servers, and cloud infrastructure, eliminating confusion between TB (decimal) and TiB (binary) in technical contexts. Tebibytes are essential for accurate reporting and planning in data centers, enterprise IT, and software development. Standardization supports consistency in global computing practices.