terabyte

American  

[ter-uh-bahyt] / ˈtɛr əˌbaɪt /

noun

Computers.

• terabytes
  plural

1. 2 40 (1,099,511,627,776) bytes; 1024 gigabytes.

2. (loosely) 10 12 or one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) bytes; 1000 gigabytes. TB, TByte.

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terabyte British  

/ ˈtɛrəˌbaɪt /

noun

1. computing 10 ¹² or 2 ⁴⁰ bytes

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terabyte Scientific  

/ tĕr′ə-bīt′ /

1. A unit of computer memory or data storage capacity equal to 1,024 gigabytes (2 ⁴⁰ bytes).

2. One trillion bytes.

3. See Note at megabyte

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• terabytes
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of terabyte

First recorded in 1980–85; tera- + byte

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

terabyte terabytes

Running the model requires Macs packing at least 1 terabyte of memory, which costs upward of $40,000.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

Affected hardware included the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage, which rose to $1,999 from $1,699 on its US store.

From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026

The industry’s first one terabyte HDD was announced at the start of 2007.

From Barron's ● Jan. 2, 2026

Calculating this four-phonon scattering required a parallel computing strategy, essentially utilizing a computing cluster with one terabyte of memory.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 28, 2023

So, to support a terabyte, multiply by five, which gives $5 million per year for a supported terabyte of data.

From Library of Congress Workshop on Etexts by Library of Congress

The Duo features the largest iPhone screen ever, at 7.6 inches, with prices starting at about $2,000 for 256 gigabytes of storage and exceeding $3,000 for two terabytes of storage.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026

Today Magyar’s Birds alone records 10 to 12 terabytes a day—the equivalent of nearly 20 years of recorded sound, or more than three million songs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

Once science operations are underway, Roman will transmit about 1.4 terabytes of data to Earth every day.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 31, 2026

The telescope will be generating about 1.3 terabytes of data a day, "which means you basically can't download the data to anybody's laptop," he said.

From Barron's ● Aug. 30, 2026

For twenty years, something less than three terabytes would be required.

From Library of Congress Workshop on Etexts by Library of Congress

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