| 1 Byte | A single character |
| 10 Bytes | A word or two |
| 100 Bytes | A sentence or two |
| 1 kB | A very short story |
| 10 kB | An encyclopedia page (perhaps with a simple picture) |
| 100 kB | A medium-resolution photograph |
| 1 MB | A novel |
| 10 MB | Two copies of the complete works of Shakespeare |
| 100 MB | 1 meter of shelved books |
| 1 GB | a pickup truck filled with pages of text |
| 1 TB | 50,000 trees of paper |
| 10 TB | The printed collection of the U.S. Library of Congress |