A megabyte is simplay a unit of measure. Mega, the metric unit for million and Byte, a single character or digit of information in a digtally encode document, an image, an audio recording or movie.
For comparison purposes, a 5 minute song on a CD uses about 50 Megabytes. A 5 minute MP3 format song downloaded from the Internet uses about 5 Megabytes. A digital image of printable quality uses about 30 Megabytes. A whole CD uses about 650 Megabytes. A single 10 minute digital video project uses about 4 Gigabytes. A Gigabyte is one thousand Megabytes, or one billion digits of information.
On the other hand, a floppy disk holds 1.4 Megabytes at a cost of $1.00, a Zip disk holds 100 Megabytes at a cost of $10.00, a Jazz disk holds 1 Gigabyte at a cost of $100.
A recordable CD holds 650 Megabytes at a cost of .40 cents, and recordable DVDs hold 4 Gigabytes at a cost of about $5.00.
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This makes floppy disks more than 1000 times expensive as a recordable CD, Jazz disks are
approximately 200 times expensive and Zip Disks aobut 150 times more expensive than a recordable CD.
These type of peripheral attachements also typically require software drivers to be installed. CD
drives on the other hand are built into most computers currently available.
Avoid removable media like floppy disks, Zip and Jazz cartridge drives and various kinds of so called smart media. It is incredibly expensive per piece and per the amount of information that may be stored.
Maui Media Lab recommends the recordable CD for all external storage purposes 650 Megabytes or lower. For larger projects Maui Media Lab recommends an external 80 Gigabyte, FireWire connected hard disk.
