Units of information

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A unit of information is any unit of measure of digital data size. In digital computing, a unit of information is used to describe the capacity of a digital data storage device. In telecommunications, a unit of information is used to describe the throughput of a communication channel. In information theory, a unit of information is used to measure information contained in messages and the entropy of random variables. Due to the need to work with data sizes that range from small to large, units of information cover a wide range of data sizes. Units are defined as multiples of a smaller unit except for the smallest unit which is based on convention and hardware design. Multiplier prefixes are used to describe relatively large sizes. For binary hardware, the most common hardware today, the smallest unit is the bit, which represents a value that is one of two possibilities, typically shown as 0 and 1. The nibble, 4 bits, represents the value of a single hexadecimal digit. The byte (8 bits,...

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