Just how much storage is 12 Terabits? For you nerds out there, 12 Terabits is 1,500,000,000,000 bytes. But, if those numbers don't mean anything to you, you're not alone!
Even if you know your bits and bytes, numbers alone won't help you understand how much you'll get out of 12 Terabits. Let's go over a few practical ways you can think of 12 Terabits. So you'll know if 12 Terabits is enough for you.
Is 12 Terabits a lot? Even if you know how many terabits you have, it won't make sense unless you have a good analogy for it. Think of 12 Terabits as:
Assuming photos are around 1MB each
Assuming each hour of video is around 1.4GB
Assuming each song is around 3 minutes long, and each minute is 1MB
Assuming each video is around 13MB and you watch around 100 tiktoks per hour
Assuming each ebook is 2.6MB
Assuming one minute of music is 1MB
Assuming one hour of gaming uses 80MB
If you're wondering if 12 Terabits is enough for you, you'll first have to answer: is this for storage (e.g. laptop, flash drive) or for data transfer (e.g. cell phone plan or internet service)?
If it is for storage, try to estimate the number of photos and videos you need to store and compare with the section above to see if 12 Terabits is enough for you.
Otherwise, if it is for data transfer, try to estimate the number of hours of streaming and social media you'll use and compare with the section above to see if 12 Terabits is enough for you.
You might hear people abbreviate Terabits as one of these:
Tb
tera
teras
No, 12 Terabits is not the same as 12 Terabytes!
When internet service providers talk about data usage, they refer to the amount in terms of bits rather than bytes. For example, a typical download speed from a internet provider is often advertised as 200 megabits per second (abbreviated as "Mb" with a lower case "b").
When talking about storage on your phone or computer, people almost always refer to bytes rather than bits. You'll hear about the iPhone having 128 gigabytes (abbreviated as "GB" with a capital "B"). You'll almost never hear that the iPhone has 1024 gigabits of storage (which is the equivalent to 128GB in gigabits).
The difference between bytes and bits is important so you know exactly how much data or storage you're getting. 12 Terabytes is eight times more than 12 Terabits!
Type in any size into the search bar below, and then click "Go". Here are some example sizes you could try out:
It might help to compare 12 Terabits to some common sizes that are used in devices and services you already know. Here are a few examples:
In 2023, iPhones came with 5 different storage options: 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.
Flash drives and SD cards can have sizes ranging from very small 1.5GB or 10GB all the way up to 2TB and even 10TB. Flash drives storage sizes typically come in multiples of two like 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB.
Google Drive has cloud storage plans for these different sizes: 15GB (for free), 30GB ($6 per month), 2TB ($12 per month), and 5TB ($18 per month).
iCloud has personal cloud storage plans for these different sizes: 50GB ($0.99 per month), 200GB ($2.99 per month), 2TB ($9.99 per month), 6TB ($29.99 per month), and 12TB ($59.99 per month).
Foyer a secure client portal has two different sizes: 1GB (free during trial) and 100GB (per month per user).
As of December 2023, Verizon has these 4 prepaid data plans: 5GB ($40 per month), 25GB ($60 per month), 100GB ($80 per month), and 150GB ($100 per month).
Spectrum has 3 popular internet plans, with these 300 megabits per second downloads ($49.99 per month), 500 megabits per second downloads ($69.99 per month), and 1 gigabit per second downloads ($89.99 per month).