Talk:Terabyte

the terabyte is not a unit of bandwidth

Blahman2 has introduced the text.

• dreamhost offers its hosting customers 5 terabytes of bandwidth and they increase it per week for each individual.

I removed the text once because it doesn't make sense (the terabyte is not a unit of bandwidth) and was reverted by Blahman2. I then tried to improve it (by replacing TB with TB/s in the hope that this was the intended meaning) and was reverted again. Do others have suggestions for improving the text? I still think it should be deleted. Thunderbird2 (talk) 23:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Try per month. It doesn't represent a top instantaneous speed, but a "if you're running at full speed all the time, we're gonna charge you more" limit. Is that a bandwidth measurement? Well, it has the right dimensions anyway. 5T/s would be really fast! --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 09:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Bandwidth is this context is a rate or speed meaning it is "something" over "a period of time". In this context the term "terabyte" on its own is therefore not bandwidth. The ISP may use the the shorthand of a size without specifying the period of time explicitly but the period of time is implied, in this case it is most likely a month. So the term terabyte/month would be more accurate, but it would also look messy :) . Fnagaton 12:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Five terabytes per month is only 2 megabytes per second. I don't think that a bandwidth of 2 MB/s merits a mention on the terabyte page. Therefore it should be deleted. Thunderbird2 (talk) 16:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Why is "per second" the most important measurement? That little factoid is about a policy which doesn't apply per second; it applies per month. Converting it to any other time frame makes it meaningless. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The bandwidth article quotes all speeds in multiples of bits per second (kbps, Mbps). You say it (the 5 TB/month) is not a "top instantaneous speed". That seems to me to be tantamount to stating that it is not a bandwidth. Just another reason for deleting the dreamhost item. So what quantity is it that equals 5 terabytes per month? Thunderbird2 (talk) 22:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I've not done business with dreamhost (or even bothered to research the statement - I'm not the one who put it in the article in the first place, and in fact I didn't even look at the article until right now, I was just answering Thunderbird2's question). But you seem to be disputing the word "bandwidth" as it's used by this particular industry. Perhaps you should take a look at Bandwidth (computers)#Bandwidth in web hosting where this newer usage of the word is described. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 23:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, now I understand. The link says it should be referred to as "monthly data transfer", so I will change it to that. Thanks Thunderbird2 (talk) 23:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Etymology of "terabyte"

I don't understand why the explanation of the etymology has been deleted by Woodstone ex cathedra: the prefix "tera" did not originate in context of data. This is a non sequitur. And untrue in any case, according to the OED, which says tera- is "Prefixed to the names of units to form the names of units 1012 (one millon million) times larger (symbol T)." The earliest example is "terabit" from 1971. It's not "teratobit". MagistraMundi (talk) 10:17, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

The prefix tera formally entered the SI in 1960 for general use, long before 1971 and long before such large units were ever used for information size in computing (which still are not SI units), so the statement cannot be true. Kbrose (talk) 13:08, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Ok, but the motivation of "tera-" is still to recognize the startling size of the numbers. MagistraMundi (talk) 10:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Now I come to think of it, it is more likely that the prefix 'tera' is derived from the Greek word 'tetra' (four). This is evidenced by the fact that all prefixes from 2⁴⁰ have a similarity to the exponent's first digit in Greek.−Woodstone (talk) 18:27, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

This etymology is not sensible. It is rejected by professional lexicographers. Scientists and others do not generally delete letters at random when they take words from Greek and other languages. MagistraMundi (talk) 10:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

These prefixes are not natural words. They have been created artificially. So the normal historic development is not followed. The superficial likeliness tera-tetra, peta-pente, exa-hex, zetta-hepte, yotta-octo is too strong to be ignored as having influenced the choices.−Woodstone (talk) 16:54, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Since this is disputed and shouldn't be in the lede without an RS in the body I'm going to delete the sentance per WP:BRT. Perhaps MagistraMundi can find a RS - I'll look for one but not too hard. In any event the assertion should not reappear without a RS. Tom94022 (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

The Wiktionary entry for terabyte links to the prefix tera-, whose etymology is given as "Ancient Greek τέρας (téras, “monster”)". See also [[1]]. MagistraMundi (talk) 10:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Those sources are probably both based on Wikipedia's Tera-, which does not cite a reference. We still need a RS. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:16, 1 February 2018 (UTC)