Talk:Terabyte
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Discussion about centralization took place at Talk:Binary prefix.
Why is this a seprate article??? —Noldoaran (Talk) 03:29, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Let's Not Confuse "Binary Prefix" with "SI Prefix"
I just spent the last hour or so repairing inconsistencies in the article in referencing the SI prefix and binary prefix, particularly in the "Quantities of Bytes" template.
The SI prefix refers to the modern-day metric system, in which one kilo-<unit> is equal to 1,000 <units>, one mega-<unit> is equal to 1,000 kilo-<units>, etc.
The binary prefix is similar to the metric system which uses "kilo" to denote a thousand, "mega" to denote a million, etc. However, the binary prefix (which is the correct way to denote the number of bits and bytes despite the fact that it is commonly misused and the subject of recent legal disputes) is based on a 2^n premise rather than 10^n; i.e. a "kilobyte" is 1024 bytes, not 1000; a "megabyte" is 1024 kilobytes, etc.
The IEC 60027-2 recently attempted to settle this dispute by declaring the commonly-used misuse to now be accurate because most people and businesses use it anyway. However, the authority of the International_Electrotechnical_Commission to unilaterally make this decision in defiance of long-held standards is largely disputed. --Kris Craig (67.183.207.37 06:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC))
- Please read through binary prefix. I think you're misunderstanding something. The "commonly used misuse" is when kilo- = 1024. The IEC certainly did not declare it to be accurate. They said it was wrong and made a new prefix for such usage. The "correct way" to denote bits and bytes is with either a decimal SI prefix (100 kilobytes = 100,000 bytes) or a binary prefix (100 kibibytes = 102,400 bytes). One or the other is probably better, depending on the thing being measured. For instance, memory is always a power of two, so it lends itself to binary prefixes. Other things (hard drive sizes, data rates) don't have an inherent base, and are better measured with SI prefixes.
- Also, this discussion should be on Template talk:Quantities of bytes; not here. — Omegatron 12:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
The problem is, the IEC is not the sole authority on the matter, as I mentioned in my changes. The use of kilo- = 1024 was set by computer scientists and manufacturers long before they decided it was "wrong". And even then, it primarily in response to lobbying from hard drive manufacturers who wanted to overstate the disk capacity of their drives. My changes kept the IEC changes in the article, but put them into an accurate perspective. 67.183.207.37
- kilo- has meant 1000 since the Greeks. It's fine to use kilo- = 1024 as an approximation or colloquialism, but it's definitely wrong where standards and precision are involved. It's expressly prohibited by the BIPM (SI), for instance. Our job is to report on things in an accurate way. The template and the article describe both the incorrect common usage and the more correct, but less common usage. Saying that the incorrect usage is the only usage is wrong and a form of advocacy, which we don't allow here.
- Also, if you can provide any evidence whatsoever of an intentional "overstatement" of hard drive sizes by manufacturers, or of them "lobbying" for the IEC prefixes, I'd love to see it.
- Please discuss changes to the template on the template's talk page, not here. — Omegatron 02:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Origins of SI prefixes
66.32.123.29 commented on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention that the origins of the prefixes for terabyte, yottabyte and zettabyte are in some doubt. Particularly, whether 'tera' is derived from the Greek 'teras' (monster), or Greek 'tetra' (four), and similarly, I assume, whether 'zetta' is from the Latin alphabet 'zeta' or a distortion of Latin 'septem' (seven). Anyhow, dictionary.com has septem and octo roots for zetta and yotta, but another site claims that zetta and yotta were used due to a decision by the General Conference of Weights and Measures to use descending letters from the Latin alphabet, starting at the end (zeta). Anyone know the correct etymology for these? -- Wapcaplet 17:05, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- No, Latin for 4 is quadri. 66.32.113.34 17:18, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Oops, I meant Greek. -- Wapcaplet 17:22, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
In the history, as of this point, it keeps changing. An edit on July 5 by Heron says "it's from teras not tetra", but then, on August 2, 209.6.214.139 changed it back to saying it's from tetra. 66.245.22.210 16:47, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Raylu's opinion
I think it would be more convienient if we deleted all the pages and put them toghether (in a new one), as much of the content on the pages is similar or the exact same. --raylu 22:56, May 12, 2004 (UTC)
- What pages; can you make a complete list?? 66.245.99.122 22:57, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
- Sorry I wasn't more clear and for the slow response. I meant the pages like kilobyte, megabyte, etc. raylu 03:58, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
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- We talked about it on Talk:Binary prefix#Vote_vote_vote.21, but decided to make a navigation template instead, since articles like megabyte are large compared to exabyte. - Omegatron 04:27, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] "A typical video store contains about 8 terabytes of video. The books in the largest library in the world, the U.S. Library of Congress, contain about 20 terabytes of text."
Does this take into account compression? Both video and text can be compressed, the latter especially. Text compresses extremely well. 68.203.195.204 01:12, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It shouldn't. The point is to illustrate the magnitude of the amount of data. While compression can reduce the amount of storage space it takes up, the actual amount of data remains the same. --Alexwcovington 08:35, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- You are right that the "actual amount of data" remains the same, but the problem is that this number, "the actual amount of data", is unknown and cannot possibly be known in practice. Knowing it would require finding the smallest possible program that can generate the data and proving that it's the smallest. (See algorithmic information theory.) Therefore the anonymous user's objection is quite valid: where do these "8 terabytes" and "20 terabytes" numbers come from? They must be either a measurement of uncompressed data or of some compression (e.g. DEFLATE) of it. --Shibboleth 21:59, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I removed the claim about the "largest library in the world" completey, having changed it already. According to the respective websites, the British Library has more items, but LoC has more shelf space. Either way, I think the "largest" claim needs qualifying if it is to be used and personally I don't think it is very helpful anyway (especially to non-Americans). It would be better to say "more text than the xxx million books in the LoC" or something similar. Bobbis 21:02, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] American trillion, Canadian...
Someone edited this article to say "million million, American trillion". Well, what is it in Canada?? In other words, American trillion, Canadian... 66.245.115.34 21:44, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- See trillion. --Shibboleth 21:49, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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- So, shouldn't it then be "million million (English trillion)" or "million million (short scale trillion)" ? Ian Cairns 23:57, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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- My last edit tried to address these points. Ian Cairns 12:30, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] European (please write the answer here)
Well, the UK is part of Europe - so this should be 'answers' rather than 'answer'. Alternatively: Continental European (please write the answer here). Ian Cairns 01:46, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- My last edit tried to address these points. Ian Cairns 12:30, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Size of Wikipedia
How large is the entire database of Wikipedia in terabytes as of this moment?? 66.32.244.146 02:34, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia Statistics the grand total for all Wikipedias is just 2.3 Gigabytes. --Alexwcovington 09:16, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The stats says now that on the 13 July 2005, Wikipedia is 4.1 Gb. 159753 20:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Are they even related?
How are file sizes and 0's and 1's related? I do not agree with the pages being merged.
- They are related in that a Terabyte is a measure of the amount of 0's and 1's. That said, I do agree they should not be merged. A terabyte is certainly a topic that can stand on its own as an article. A centimetre, metre, kilometre, etc... all have their own pages so why shouldn't a terabyte? — oo64eva (AJ) (U | T | C) @ 05:41, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
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- Hence the question mark. All the smaller articles like pebibit should definitely be merged. See Talk:Binary prefix#Consolidate all the little articles and Talk:Binary prefix#We need a template for the little articles. - Omegatron 12:29, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
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- Oh. Someone changed the merge template. It used to have a question mark after it for the bigger articles like megabyte. *sigh*... - Omegatron 12:31, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Terabyte or Terrabyte
Both versions are used on the same page! Which is correct?
- Fixed Ian Cairns 10:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Terabyte" is correct. 67.183.207.37 05:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Gigabytes first
It's easier for the laymen to understand TB if we compare it to GB first.--Capsela 14:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Cite for the UPS thing?
"The shipping company UPS has approximately 474 terabytes of information in its databases."
There's no way that could possibly be true, is there? PSXer 03:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I've been googling around, and it looks like that figure could refer to the total hard drive space on all their computers (of which they apparently have over a quarter millions), not one gigantic database. Of course, quite a bit of that would probably be empty space, as well as a lot of redundant data on each computer such as OS files. PSXer 04:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Advertising
Is the definition that's just a link to a web design company by that name at all allowable? I shouldn't think so. I'm going to remove it shortly if nobody objects. Maybe a mod could tell that user to stop the ads? GrubLord 11:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
