What Is Data?

Data (plural of datum, which is seldom used) are distinct pieces of information, usually formatted in a special way. It can exist in a variety of forms, including knowledge stored in a human mind, text written or printed on paper, and patterns of bytes stored in electronic memory chip, on magnetic media.

In computer science, data is one of the two broad categories of computer software. It is anything in a form suitable for use with a computer. Data is often distinguished from the other category – programs, which are sets of instructions for manipulating data. In this sense, data is thus everything that is not program code.

In an alternate usage, data is often referred to binary files (which are not human-readable) as distinguished from human-readable text. The total amount of digital data in 2007 was estimated to be 281 billion gigabytes.