Data Transfer Converters
Internet providers advertise speeds in megabits per second, but your browser and download manager show megabytes per second. Because a byte is eight bits, the same connection looks eight times faster in the advertisement than in your download window. These converters translate between bit-based network speeds and byte-based transfer speeds, so you can work out how long a download will really take and which plan you need for streaming, gaming or backups.
All data transfer converters
Things to know about data transfer conversions
- Network speeds use bits (lowercase b): Mbps. File transfers use bytes (uppercase B): MB/s. Divide megabits by 8 to get megabytes.
- Real-world speeds are always lower than the advertised figure because of protocol overhead, Wi-Fi conditions and server limits.
- To estimate download time, divide file size in megabytes by speed in megabytes per second. A 2 GB file at 100 Mbps takes about 2 minutes 40 seconds.
Data Transfer conversion chart
Read across: one of the unit in the left column equals the value shown under each unit.
| 1 unit = | bps | Kbps | Mbps | Gbps | KB/s | MB/s | GB/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bps | 1 | 0.001 | 1 × 10-6 | 1 × 10-9 | 0.000125 | 1.25 × 10-7 | 0 |
| Kbps | 1,000 | 1 | 0.001 | 1 × 10-6 | 0.125 | 0.000125 | 0 |
| Mbps | 1,000,000 | 1,000 | 1 | 0.001 | 125 | 0.125 | 0.000125 |
| Gbps | 1,000,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 1,000 | 1 | 125,000 | 125 | 0.125 |
| KB/s | 8,000 | 8 | 0.008 | 8 × 10-6 | 1 | 0.001 | 0 |
| MB/s | 8,000,000 | 8,000 | 8 | 0.008 | 1,000 | 1 | 0.001 |
| GB/s | 8,000,000,000 | 8,000,000 | 8,000 | 8 | 1,000,000 | 1,000 | 1 |
Data Transfer units explained
- Bit per second (bps)
- A bit per second is the base unit of network speed. One byte is eight bits, so 8 bps equals 1 byte per second.
- Kilobit per second (Kbps)
- A kilobit per second is 1,000 bits per second. Old dial-up modems ran at up to 56 Kbps.
- Megabit per second (Mbps)
- A megabit per second is 1,000,000 bits per second, and the unit internet plans and Wi-Fi speeds are advertised in. 100 Mbps is 12.5 megabytes per second.
- Gigabit per second (Gbps)
- A gigabit per second is 1,000 Mbps. It is the speed of fiber plans, wired local networks and fast Wi-Fi 6 and 7 links.
- Kilobyte per second (KB/s)
- A kilobyte per second is 1,000 bytes per second, often shown by older download managers and slow connections.
- Megabyte per second (MB/s)
- A megabyte per second is the unit browsers, game launchers and file copy dialogs show. It equals 8 megabits per second.
- Gigabyte per second (GB/s)
- A gigabyte per second is used for the speed of SSDs, memory and high-end network equipment.