# Storage capacity of the human brain.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/storage-capacity-of-the-human-brain/188595>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 15, 2003, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/storage-capacity-of-the-human-brain/188595 "2003-07-15T05:58:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/storage-capacity-of-the-human-brain/188595/1 "2003-07-15T05:58:18Z")

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Has it been determined how much knowledge and memories can be stored in the human brain? Is there a standard of measurement used? For example, if the human brain was compared to a computer, how many gigabytes or terabytes or (fill in the blank)bytes does the average human brain hold?  
Or is my question unanswerable? (I hope not)

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**Author:** ![culov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@culov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/culov)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/storage-capacity-of-the-human-brain/188595/2 "2003-07-15T06:11:19Z")

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There was a topic about this a few weeks ago IIRC. Someone gave an estimate, but its not very accurate since there is no real way to accurately compare the human brain and a computer. I tried looking for the topic without any success.

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**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/storage-capacity-of-the-human-brain/188595/3 "2003-07-15T06:13:58Z")

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Oh, if it was discussed, I’ll try searching for it myself. It’s just something I’ve been curious about lately for some reason.