gigabyte

[gig-uh-bahyt, jig-] /ˈgɪg əˌbaɪt, ˈdʒɪg-/
noun, Computers.
1.
a measure of storage capacity equal to 2 30 (1024) bytes.
Origin
giga- + byte
Examples from the web for gigabyte
  • These convenient storage devices will hold up to one gigabyte of files, and that's a lot of holiday photos and mp3 files.
  • For comparison, the human genome is less than a gigabyte in size.
British Dictionary definitions for gigabyte

gigabyte

/ˈɡɪɡəˌbaɪt; ˈɡaɪɡəˌbaɪt/
noun
1.
(computing) one thousand and twenty-four megabytes See also giga- (sense 2)
Word Origin and History for gigabyte
n.

1982, from giga- + byte.

gigabyte in Science
gigabyte
  (gĭg'ə-bīt')   

  1. A unit of computer memory or data storage capacity equal to 1,024 megabytes (230 bytes).

  2. One billion bytes. See Note at megabyte.


gigabyte in Technology

unit
2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes = 1024 megabytes.
Roughly the amount of data required to encode a human gene sequence (including all the redundant codons).
See prefix.
(1995-09-29)