Why does digital storage always have the same values eg. 32gb, 64gb, 128gb, 256gb etc. and why do they double every time they go up in size? Is this a limitation or just a standard?
In: Technology
Computer technology is built on binary logic. Binary means there are only two values, similar to how a light switch has only on or off. This is how computers do math, they use two values 0 and 1. In math you would call that base two math. So instead of counting to 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 before you get to 10, 11, 12, and so on, a computer counts 0, 1, 10, 11, 100. Every time you add a 1 to the front, it doubles the value. So if we compare binary with counting to 10, the vales are 0=0, 1=1, 10=2, 11=3, 100=4, 101=5, 110=6, 111=7, 1000=8, and so on.
These binary numbers are called bits. Every time you have another bit, you double the number you can count up to with binary. Eight bits make a byte. So when you get more bytes of storage the number gets bigger.
If you double numbers they go 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and so on. This is why you always see these numbers when they talk about speed, memory, or storage. It’s the language of computers.
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