GB vs. gb -- confused 1

[Sam577]

Hi,

Wasn't sure which forum to ask this on, but this looked the most relevant (that the members might be able to help).

I've just started working on a telecoms magazine as a proofreader, and have been getting really confused about this.

I've been told that GB and Gb mean different things depending on the capitalisation of the b.

There are lots of articles on the net about the technical differences between the two. I'm not technical to say the least, but I do need to understand the correct usage.

The terms seem to be used interchangeably on the net (indicating that they are being used incorrectly by most people/companies).

I believe that GB should be used to indicate the hard drive size/storage capacity of a phone/pc, but where should gb be used? (Am I correct about GB?)

Can anyone help?

Many thanks,
Sam

 

[Sympology]

One is bits and one is bites.

8 bits = 1 byte

Physical Capacity tends to be measured in Bytes, things like link speed tend to be measured in bits (or octets if you want to be real techie)

Think little bits (b), big bytes(B)

So when you have a 8mb connection, it is a 1 "byte" connection.

So (in theory)

If you had a 10MB file and a 1mb (per second) link it would take
10x1x8 = 80 seconds, not 10 as many people would think.

It of course would take much longer, but that is getting into the world of networking, proberbly beyond what you need to know.

found this article that is pretty good.

http://www.romulus2.com/articles/guides/misc/bitsbytes.shtml

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004