If you’re asking this question, then undoubtedly you are new to the computer ‘world’! Just a basic understanding of these terms and those related to it will give you a better understanding of your computer and how to use it best.

Mega and Giga, quite simply, are two terms of measurement for computers. They are, like miles and horsepower, measurements that help to understand the workings of your computer. If you know that MPH stands for Miles Per Hour then you can read your gauge in your car and know that at 35 MPH it will take you one hour to travel that distance.

Well, that’s easy, you say, everyone knows that! Well, everyone who drives a car that is! Ask a 10-year-old child (who isn’t into racing games!) what MPH means and you won’t get a proper answer.

So, let’s explain these computer terms to you.

Mega and Giga are commonly paired with another term called Byte. A Byte is the smallest unit of storage in a computer and is equivalent to a piece of text like the letter “A”. There is actually a term that was used prior to these terms called Kilo, which means 1 thousand (1000) bytes. That used to be the measurement for both memory and storage for very old (in computer years) computers from the early to mid 1990’s!

Now, memory for a computer is usually measured in MegaBytes, or 1 Million bytes, so that a computer that has 512 MegaBytes of memory has 512 Million bytes of memory capacity, better seen as 512,000,000 (approximately). But, even that is rapidly becoming an obsolete term as more and more computers are now being shipped with double that amount or approximately 1 Billion Bytes or 1 GigaByte.

Are you following the line of reasoning so far? Let’s see … Mega equals Million (approximately) and Giga equals Billion (approximately). Now, why am I saying approximately? Well, it’s because, once you get over a certain level in numbers, the exact number becomes irrelevant. Kilo for example actually refers to 1024 Bytes, but it became easier to refer to it as 1 thousand. And Mega actually refers to 1,024,000 bytes. So, don’t concern yourselves with actual numbers, just be glad that we have word terms to refer to these huge amounts of storage!

So, what does this mean to you? Well, when you take a look at your System Information (through Control Panel) you’ll be able to understand what the numbers there mean. For example, going to my computer info I can see that I have 512 MB (short for MegaBytes) of RAM (memory) which is a good amount of memory for running most programs. I can go to my ‘My Computer’ icon and open it up to see my drives and folders and right click on my Hard Drive to get a visual and numerical view of how much my hard drive has stored and how much I can still put on it. Currently, I have 59.7 GB (GigaBytes) of storage left on my hard drive, which started out as an 80 GB hard drive. Plenty of room to do just about anything I want!

By the way, the exact number of free space on my computer is 59,698,987,008 bytes … so, isn’t it so much easier and quicker to say 59.7 GB? I think so! And I hope that you do too, now that you know a little bit more about this topic!

Written by Debbi Baird, Co Owner, PC For Seniors Author of many technical articles in ‘plain English’ for the “Older Generation” and Trainer / Tutor / Consultant in the Palm Beach, Florida area. Go to http://www.pcforseniors.com to find more information on computers and The Internet in the “How Do I …” section of the web site! Also, check out our Hot Sites! Listing for links to great places to go online for Seniors! http://www.pcforseniors.com/html/hot_sites_.html