GB (Gigabyte) is a unit of information or computer storage meaning approximately 1 billion (109 or 1 thousand million) bytes. It is commonly used to measure the size of computer memory or data storage.
It is often used in combination with other standard computing units such as the megabyte (MB) and the byte (B). A typical high-definition audio or video file might be as large as 4GB. The symbol for gigabyte is “GB” or “Gig”.
The term is derived from the SI prefix giga – meaning “billion”, and the unit “byte”, which is a unit of digital information of 8 bits. Therefore, 1 gigabyte is equal to 1 billion bytes. It is sometimes abbreviated as “G”.
The use of the GB unit to describe the data capacity of hard disk drives for personal computers is also common. The capacity of many popular hard disk drives is expressed in gigabytes, and the size of a new hard disk drive is usually at least 40GB, much larger than what most computers had just a few years ago.
GB is also commonly found in other areas of computing, for example Ram Memory (Random Access Memory) which stores data temporarily while a computer is running is also often measured in gigabytes.
The amount of storage capacity available in a given device or system, can vary significantly, depending on the type of data being stored, and the particular type of media being used. As such, the storage capacity of devices, such as USB drives, can range from a few megabytes (MB) to several gigabytes (GB).
