terabyte

American  

[ter-uh-bahyt] / ˈtɛr əˌbaɪt /

noun

Computers.

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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Etymology

Origin of terabyte

First recorded in 1980–85; tera- + byte

Example Sentences

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

From Barron's • Jan. 2, 2026

“A terabyte is, for most people, gigantic, yet a fragment of a human brain – just a miniscule, teeny-weeny little bit of human brain – is still thousands of terabytes.”

From Science Daily • May 9, 2024

Specifically, an expansion card about the size of half of a business card simply plugs into the back of the entertainment console and expands storage up to 1 terabyte.

From Washington Times • Nov. 25, 2023

What I didn’t add is that those who subscribe to the Microsoft 365 Family suite automatically get 1 terabyte of cloud storage at no extra cost for up to six family members.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 21, 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