ORDERS(7) | Miscellaneous Information Manual | ORDERS(7)

# NAME

orders — orders of magnitude

# DESCRIPTION

The following table lists common multiples of bytes.

Name | Prefix | Power of 2 | Power of 10
Kilobyte | kB | 2^10 | 10^3
Megabyte | MB | 2^20 | 10^6
Gigabyte | GB | 2^30 | 10^9
Terabyte | TB | 2^40 | 10^12
Petabyte | PB | 2^50 | 10^15
Exabyte | EB | 2^60 | 10^18
Zettabyte | ZB | 2^70 | 10^21
Yottabyte | YB | 2^80 | 10^24

The following table lists common bit rates as a power of ten.

Name | Prefix | Bit per second | Byte per second
Bit per second | bit/s | 1 | 0.125
Byte per second | B/s | 8 | 1
Kilobit per second | kbit/s | 10^3 | 125
Kilobyte per second | kB/s | 8 * 10^3 | 1000
Megabit per second | Mbit/s | 10^6 | 125000
Megabyte per second | MB/s | 8 * 10^6 | 1000000
Gigabit per second | Gbit/s | 10^9 | 125000000
Gigabyte per second | GB/s | 8 * 10^9 | 1000000000
Terabit per second | Tbit/s | 10^12 | 125000000000
Terabyte per second | TB/s | 8 * 10^12 | 1000000000000

The following table lists common orders of magnitude as a power of ten.

Name | Order | Prefix | Symbol | Decimal
Septillionth | 10^-24 | yocto | y | 0.000000000000000000000001
Sextillionth | 10^-21 | zepto | z | 0.000000000000000000001
Quintillionth | 10^-18 | atto | a | 0.000000000000000001
Quadrillionth | 10^-15 | femto | f | 0.000000000000001
Trillionth | 10^-12 | pico | p | 0.000000000001
Billionth | 10^-9 | nano | n | 0.000000001
Millionth | 10^-6 | micro | mu | 0.000001
Thousandth | 10^-3 | milli | m | 0.001
Hundredth | 10^-2 | centi | c | 0.01
Tenth | 10^-1 | deci | d | 0.1
One | 10^0 | - | - | 1
Ten | 10^1 | deca | da | 10
Hundred | 10^2 | hecto | h | 100
Thousand | 10^3 | kilo | k | 1000
Million | 10^6 | mega | M | 1000000
Billion | 10^9 | giga | G | 1000000000
Trillion | 10^12 | tera | T | 1000000000000
Quadrillion | 10^15 | peta | P | 1000000000000000
Quintillion | 10^18 | exa | E | 1000000000000000000
Sextillion | 10^21 | zetta | Z | 1000000000000000000000
Septillion | 10^24 | yotta | Y | 1000000000000000000000000

# SEE ALSO

units(1), strsuftoll(3), number(6)

# STANDARDS

There have been various attempts to standardize the set of binary prefixes. Organizations such as International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have proposed new prefixes such as “kibi”, “mebi”, “gibi”, and “yobi”, but the adoption has been slow at best.

August 6, 2011 | NetBSD 6.0