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Glite Dictionary
terabyte

terabyte

8 4.1
A very large amount of computer storage, about 1,000 gigabytes
  • noun
  • /ˈtɛrəˌbaɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : terabyte
  • The satellites generate roughly 1 terabyte of raw data per day.
  • terabytes of data

Did you hear that this is a six terabyte hard drive?

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Examples

  • Yes, you can buy four terabyte standard SATA format SSD.

  • The Library of Congress, the biggest library in the world, has 235 terabytes of data.

    Blog text (11)

  • You can buy a two terabyte USB drive.

  • Transfers of one terabyte images will be needed every single minute around the world.

  • Fiber can transfer a terabyte of data in five minutes.

    Jane Doe (2001)

  • And in the back of here I have a three terabyte Seagate hard drive.

  • By the end of this month, that same server will be available with 50 terabytes of storage.

    Blog text (15)

  • My 2-terabyte hard drive is filling up, so I bought a 3-terabyte one to replace it.

    Blog text (32)

  • Lastly, we'll need the maximum storage listed as a one terabyte PCIe type SSD drive.

  • The data stored on the server amounts to about two terabytes of personal information.

Synonyms

TB
vsterabyte
  • Specialized
5 3.5

A large computer storage size equal to about one trillion bytes

has identical meaning but uses the full word instead of the abbreviation

How Much Data

petabyte
  • Specialized
2 7.2
terabyte
  • Specialized
8 4.1
gigabyte
  • Specialized
13 2.7
megabyte
  • Specialized
10 3.0
kilobyte
  • Specialized
4 3.6
byte
  • Specialized
23 3.6

Surface Forms

terabyte singular
terabytes plural

Morphology

terabyte = byte (transparent) = tera + byte

A standard metric prefix 'tera-' meaning a trillion combines directly with the unit 'byte' to indicate the size.

Etymology

Terabyte combines the prefix tera-, from a Greek word for 'monster' meaning 'very large', and byte, a 'unit of digital data', so a terabyte is a monster-sized or very large amount of storage. It is one step bigger than a gigabyte, which helps explain why a terabyte can hold thousands of photos or many hours of video.