Key takeaways
- 12.500 MB/s for a 100 megabit connection: divide megabits by 8 for megabytes.
- MB and MiB differ: 100 MiB = 104.86 decimal MB.
Bits, bytes and the prefixes
Network speeds are quoted in bits per second and files in bytes, so divide megabits by 8 to get megabytes. Kilo, mega and giga mean 1,000, 1,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 in decimal use.
Binary units (KiB, MiB, GiB) use powers of 1,024. A file manager may show either, which is why a 100 MB file can be listed as 95.4 MiB.
Scenarios
| Scenario | In MB/s | In kbps | In megabits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Mbps, 10 MB | 1.250 MB/s | 10,000 kbps | 83.9 Mb |
| 100 Mbps, 100 MB | 12.500 MB/s | 100,000 kbps | 838.9 Mb |
| 500 Mbps, 1,000 MB | 62.500 MB/s | 500,000 kbps | 8388.6 Mb |
| 1,000 Mbps, 4,096 MB | 125.000 MB/s | 1,000,000 kbps | 34359.7 Mb |
Connection speeds in gigabytes per hour
A connection that runs at its full rate moves this much in an hour. Mbps ÷ 8 gives MB/s; × 3,600 gives MB per hour.
| Speed | MB/s | GB per hour (decimal) |
|---|---|---|
| 10 Mbps | 1.3 | 4.5 |
| 50 Mbps | 6.3 | 22.5 |
| 100 Mbps | 12.5 | 45.0 |
| 500 Mbps | 62.5 | 225.0 |
| 1000 Mbps | 125.0 | 450.0 |