explain why kilobytes and terabytes would not be descriptive measurements for the amount of space on an average USB storage device (8-256GB). (2 points)

1 answer

Kilobytes (KB) and terabytes (TB) are not descriptive measurements for the amount of space on an average USB storage device because they are either too small or too large to accurately represent the capacity.

1. Kilobytes: A kilobyte is equal to 1,000 bytes. While it was commonly used in the past, it doesn't suit the current storage capacities of USB devices. An average USB storage device today has a minimum capacity of 8GB, which equals to 8,000,000,000 bytes. Using kilobytes would require using larger numbers, which can be confusing and less practical.

2. Terabytes: On the other hand, a terabyte is equal to 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. While terabytes are commonly used for large-scale storage measurements, it would be an overestimation for an average USB device. Most USB storage devices range from 8GB to 256GB, which translates to 8,000,000,000 to 256,000,000,000 bytes. Utilizing terabytes would create unnecessary complexity and inaccurately represent the actual storage capacity.

For an average USB storage device, it is more appropriate to use the units of gigabytes (GB) as it aligns with the capacity range.