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What is Data and its Types?

What Exactly is Data?

In the field of computer science, data is information that has been translated into a form that is easier for movement and processing. It is also defined as facts or figures, that are stored or used by the computing device. We also have raw data, which is defined as data in its basic format. Data in its form does not carry any information or have a specific meaning. When we tag logical meaning with data, it is known as information.

A computer or a computing device treats data as information that can be processed to produce useful results. This information can be in the form of texts, documents, audio, images, or other software applications. As computer science stores data in binary format, it can be created processed, saved, or stored digitally.

Examples of Data

We have so much data that is available today that, it’s not possible to list everything here. But let’s try to list some frequently used data as an example. These data are being collected in everyday life from different sources. They are used to emanating insights and are used for everyday applications.

What are the Types of Data?

Classification of data is a tricky topic as they can be classified in different ways given a context.

In Statistics, data are divided into two types.

They are Nominal and Ordinal Data.

They are discrete and Continuous data.

Data Storage Measurements

When we store data on a storage device or hard disk storage, it is measured differently. We need to choose the technology to choose the right storage requirement for the projects. When we study data, we also need to understand how it is measured in the computer science world.

UnitAbbreviationsCapacity Description
Bitb0 or 1 (or On and Off)It is the atomic and smallest unit of storage
that can store 0 or 1.
ByteB8 bitsIt can store a character like “a” or “b”
KilobyteKB1024 bytesIt can store 2 or 3 paragraphs of text
MegabyteMB1024 kilobytesIt can store 4 books with 200 pages each
GigabyteGB1024 megabytesIt can store around 4000 books with 200 pages each
TerabyteTB1024 gigabytesIt can store around 2 million books with 200 pages each
PetaBytePB1024 terabytesIt can store around 4 billion books with 200 pages each
ExabyteEB1024 petabytesIt can store around 4000 billion books with 200 pages each
ZettabyteZB1024 exabytesIt can store around 4 million billion books with 200 pages  each
YottabyteYB1024 zettabytesIt can store around 5 billion billion books with 200 pages each

Conclusion

So far, We have learned about data and its types. We also read about the various examples of data and the data storage measurements details.

Do you think this is enough to learn about the data?

Please share this blog post on social media and leave a comment with any questions or suggestions.

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