Megabytes, microSD cards and typing

We take for granted how much ‘real world’ data our storage devices hold. A quick example:

One byte of storage is 1 typed character on the screen/page.

• 1 megabyte (1 million bytes) is 1 million characters; approx 500 typed pages (roughly!)
• 1 gigabyte (GB) is 1,000 megabytes:  about 500,000 typed pages
• 1 terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes: about 500,000,000 typed pages (500 million)

My phone’s microSD card is tiny (11mm x 15mm) and yet holds 32 GB.  That is 16 million typed pages.

The poor old Encyclopedia Britannica was about 33,000 printed pages.  So the little phone memory card holds about 484 Britannicas worth of data.