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A megabyte or Mbyte is a unit of Information or Computer Storage equal to either 106 (1,000,000) Byte s or 220 (1,048,576) bytes, depending on context. In rare cases, it is used to mean 1000×1024 (1,024,000) bytes. It is commonly abbreviated as Mbyte or '''MB''' (not to be confused with '''Mb''', which is used for the Megabit ). The term megabyte was coined in 1970."Megabyte."Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed. 1983. DEFINITION The term "megabyte" is considered ambiguous by some because it is commonly used to mean either ''1000&2'' bytes or 1024&2 bytes. The confusion originated as compromise technical jargon for the byte Multiples that needed to be expressed by the powers of 2 but lacked convenient naming. As 1024 (2¹º) is roughly equal to 1000 (10³), roughly corresponding SI multiples began to be used as ''approximate'' binary multiples. In the past few years, standards and government authorities including IEC , IEEE , EU , and NIST , have addressed this ambiguity by promoting the use of '''megabyte''' to describe strictly 1000&2 bytes and " Me'''bi'''byte " to describe 1024&2 bytes. This shift is reflected in an increasing number of software projects, but most File Managers still show file sizes as "megabytes" ("MB"). The term remains ambiguous and it can follow any one of the following common ''definitions'': # 1,000,000 bytes (10002, 106): This is the definition recommended by SI and IEC . This definition is used in Networking contexts and most Storage Media , particularly Hard Drive s, Flash -based storage, and DVD s, and is also consistent with the other uses of the SI Prefix in computing, such as CPU Clock Speeds or Measures Of Performance . # 1,048,576 bytes (10242, 220): This definition is most commonly used in reference to Computer Memory , but most software that display file size or drive capacity, including File Managers also use this definition. See Consumer Confusion (in the "gigabyte" article). # 1,024,000 bytes (1000×1024): This is used to describe the formatted capacity of USB Flash Drive s and the "1.44 MB" 3.5 inch HD Floppy Disk , which actually has a 1440 KiB capacity, that is, 1,440×1,024 bytes, or 1,474,560 bytes. MEGABYTE EXAMPLES Depending on compression methods and File Format , a megabyte of data can roughly be:
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