| vnv
The Bits vs. Bytes Confusion
Let's start with some background information on
prefixes, by mentioning the Metric system:
- kilo (k)* = 10 ^ 3 =
1,000 thousand
- mega (M) = 10 ^ 6 = 1,000,000 million
- giga (G) = 10 ^ 9 = 1,000,000,000 billion
- tera (T) = 10 ^ 12 = 1,000,000,000,000 trillion
When used to describe Data Transfer Rate, bits/bytes
are calculated as in the metric system
When used to describe Memory Size, or Data
Storage bits/bytes are generally calculated as some exponent of 2
- 1 byte (B) = 8 bits (b)
- 1 Kilobyte (K / KB) = 2^10 bytes = 1,024 bytes
- 1 Megabyte (M / MB) = 2^20 bytes = 1,048,576
bytes
- 1 Gigabyte (G / GB) = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824
bytes
- 1 Terabyte (T / TB) = 2^40 bytes =
1,099,511,627,776 bytes
Abbreviations Table
| bit |
b |
0 or 1 |
| byte |
B |
8 bits |
| kilobit |
kb |
1000 bits |
| kilobyte (binary) |
KB |
1024 bytes |
| kilobyte (decimal) |
KB |
1000 bytes |
| Megabit |
Mb |
1000 kilobits |
| Megabyte (binary) |
MB |
1024 Kilobytes |
| Megabyte (decimal) |
MB |
1000 Kilobytes |
| Gigabit |
Gb |
1000 Megabits |
| Gigabyte (binary) |
GB |
1024 Megabytes |
| Gigabyte (decimal) |
GB |
1000 Megabytes |
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