One byte is the smallest quantity of data and consists of 8 bits. This means that a bit is the smallest unit of information. So, everything is based on bits and bytes. One bit, abbreviated from binary information digit, can represent one of two states: 1 or 0. Since computers process information via the binary code, this is the smallest understandable piece of information in the IT sector.
In information processing, one bit is too small to transmit or store complex information. One byte is therefore the smallest amount of data and serves as the basis for all storage capacities. In contrast to the bit, one byte can assume 28 (256 bits) different states. At least one byte is required to represent a letter or an alpha-numeric character.
According to the decimal system, an exabyte comprises 1018, i.e., one trillion bytes. A megabyte is made up of one million bytes. As a reminder: around 4 megabytes are required today to save a high-resolution photo. The current largest unit of information is the zettabyte, which, according to the binary system, corresponds to 1,024 exabytes. Anyone who owns an external hard drive in the terabyte range may be able to imagine what that means: 1,024 terabytes are 1 petabyte, 1,024 petabytes make 1 exabyte.