One thing that often gives people confusion is the difference between a Megabyte (used for file size) and a Megabit (used for download speeds). People often assume that a download speed of 1 Megabit per second (1 Mbps) will allow them to download a 1 Megabyte file in one second. This is not the case, a Megabit is 1/8 as big as a Megabyte, meaning that to download a 1MB file in 1 second you would need a connection of 8Mbps. The difference between a Gigabyte (GB) and a Gigabit (Gb) is the same, with a Gigabyte being 8 times larger than a Gigabit.
Mbps: (Small "b") A megabit per second (Mbit/s or Mbps) is a unit of data transfer rate equal to 1,000,000 bits per second or 1,000 kilobits per second. 8 Megabits per second is equivalent to 1 Megabyte per second (ie. 8 Mbps = 1 MBps). Hence 1 Megabits per second = 0.125 Megabyte per second (ie. 1 Mbps = 0.125 MBps)).
MBps: (Capital "B") A megabyte per second (MB/s or MBps) is a unit of data transfer rate equal to:
1,000,000 bytes per second, or
1,000 kilobytes per second, or
8 megabits per second.
Computer data interfaces are often rated in MB/s:
PATA 33 – 133 MB/s
SATA 150 – 300 MB/s
PCI 133 – 533 MB/s
Leave a Comment