Memory Calculations – in your head

Right then, after digging out my calculator and going back over everything, I have it again 🙂

I did miss out a step, here is the worked example

32 bit Address Bus – 64 bit Data Bus

  • 2Address Bus * Data Bus
  • 232 * 64 bits is equivalent to
  • 232 * 8 Bytes
  • 8 * 232 is equivalent to
  • 8 * 22 * 230
  • 8 * 4 * 230
  • 32 * 230 Bytes

230 is a GigaByte so the answer is 32GB

Remember

  • 210 = KiloBytes
  • 220 = MegaBytes
  • 230 = GigaBytes
  • 240 = TerraBytes
  • 250 = PetaBytes

Here is a graphic from wikipedia, notice the IEC binary prefix, this is to try and remove the confusion when manufacturers refer to a hard drive as having 30GB capacity they often mean 30×109 rather than 30×230 or 30,000,000,000 Bytes rather than 32,212,254,720 Bytes a difference of 2,212,254,720 Bytes (Aprox. 2GB)