Which is more than 20 MB or 1000 Mb. What Internet speed is considered normal

However, imagine that you have a high speed Internet connection, you are unlikely to say "I have 57.344 bits." It’s much easier to say “I have 56 kbytes,” isn't it? Or, you can say “I have 8 kbps,” which is actually exactly 56 kb, or 57.344 bits.

Let's understand in more detail how many megabytes per megabyte.

The smallest measure of speed or size is Bit, followed by Byte and others. Where, in 1 byte there are 8 bits, that is, saying 2 bytes, you actually say 16 bits. Speaking 32 bits, you actually say 4 bytes. That is, such measurement measures as bytes, kbits, kbytes, mbits, mbytes, gbits, gbytes, etc. were invented so that they would not have to pronounce or write long digits.

Just imagine that these units of measurement would not exist, how would the same gigabyte be measured in this case? Since 1 gigabyte equals 8.589.934.592 bits, is it not more convenient to say 1 GB than to write such long digits.

We already know what 1 bit is and what 1 byte is. Let's go further.

There is also a unit of measurement “kbit” and “kbyte”, as they are also called “kilobits” and “kilobytes”.

  • Where, 1 kbit, this is 1024 bits, and 1 kbyte, this is 1024 bytes.
  • 1 kb \u003d 8 kbps \u003d 1024 bytes \u003d 8192 bits

In addition, there are also "Mbits" and "MBs", or as they are also called "megabits" and "megabytes".

  • Where, 1 Mbps \u003d 1024 Kbps, and 1 Mb \u003d 1024 Kb.

It follows that:

  • 1 MB \u003d 8 MB \u003d 8192 KB \u003d 65536 KB \u003d 8388608 bytes \u003d 67108864 bits

If you think about it, everything becomes simple.

Now do you know how many megabytes are in megabytes?

It will be hard the first time, but you will get used to it. Try to go the easy way:

  • 1 megabyte \u003d 1024 kbytes \u003d 1048576 bytes \u003d 8388608 bits \u003d 8192 kbps \u003d 1024 kbytes \u003d 8 mbps
  • That is, in 1 megabyte \u003d 8 megabytes.
  • Similarly, 1 kilobyte \u003d 8 kilobits.
  • As in 1 byte \u003d 8 bits.

Isn’t it easy?

So, for example, you can find out the time for which you download one or another file. Let's say your Internet connection speed is 128 kilobytes per second, and the file that you download on the Internet weighs 500 megabytes. How long do you think the file is downloading?
  Let's count.

To find out, you just need to understand how many kilobytes are in 500 megabytes. To do this is simple, just multiply the number of megabytes (500) by 1024, since 1 megabyte has 1024 kilobytes. We get the number 512000, this is the number of seconds for which the file is downloaded, given the connection speed of 1 kilobyte per second. But, we have a speed of 128 kilobytes per second, which means we divide the resulting number by 128. There remains 4000, this is the time in seconds for which the file is downloaded.

Convert seconds to minutes:

  • 4000/60 \u003d ~ 66.50 minutes

Convert to hours:

  • ~ 66.50 / 60 \u003d ~ 1 hour 10 minutes

That is, our 500 megabyte file downloads in 1 hour 10 minutes, given that the connection speed over the entire time will be exactly 128 kilobytes
  per second, which equals 131.072 bytes, or, more precisely, 1,048.576 bits.

Today, every home needs the Internet no less than water or light. And in every city there are lots of companies or small firms that can provide people with access to the Internet.

The user can choose any package for using the Internet from a maximum of 100 Mbit / s to a low speed, for example 512 kB / s. How to choose the right speed and the right Internet provider for yourself?

Of course, you need to choose the Internet speed based on what you do on the network and how much you are willing to pay per month for Internet access. From my own experience I want to say that the speed of 15 Mbit / s quite suits me as a person who works on the network. While working on the Internet, I have 2 browsers turned on, and each has 20-30 tabs open, and problems arise more from the computer side (to work with a large number of tabs, you need a lot of RAM and a powerful processor) than from the speed of the Internet. The only moment when you have to wait a bit is the moment you first launch the browser, when all the tabs are loaded at the same time, but usually it takes no more than a minute.

1. What do Internet speed mean?

Many users confuse the speed of the Internet thinking that 15Mb / s is 15 megabytes per second. Actually 15Mb / s is 15 megabytes per second, and this is 8 times less than megabytes and at the output we get about 2 megabytes the speed of downloading files and pages. If you usually download movies for viewing in the size of 1500 Mb, then with a speed of 15 Mbps the movie will load 12-13 minutes.

Watching a lot or a little of your internet speed

  • The speed is 512 kbit / s 512/8 \u003d 64 kB / s (this speed is not enough to watch online video);
  • The speed is 4 Mbit / s 4/8 \u003d 0.5 MB / s or 512 kB / s (this speed is enough to watch online video in quality up to 480p);
  • The speed is 6 Mbps 6/8 \u003d 0.75 MB / s (this speed is enough to watch online video in quality up to 720p);
  • The speed is 16 Mbps 16/8 \u003d 2 MB / s (this speed is enough to watch online video in quality up to 2K);
  • The speed is 30 Mbps 30/8 \u003d 3.75 MB / s (this speed is enough to watch online video in quality up to 4K);
  • The speed is 60 Mbit / s 60/8 \u003d 7.5 MB / s (this speed is enough to watch online video in any quality);
  • The speed is 70 Mb / s 60/8 \u003d 8.75 MB / s (this speed is enough to watch online video in any quality);
  • The speed is 100 Mbps 100/8 \u003d 12.5 MB / s (this speed is enough to watch online video in any quality).

Many connecting to the Internet are worried about the possibility of watching online video, let's see what traffic is needed for films with different quality.

2. Internet speed required to watch online video

And here you will learn a lot or a little of your speed for watching online videos with different quality formats.

Broadcast Type Video bitrate Bitrate audio (stereo) Mb / s traffic (megabytes per second)
Ultra HD 4K 25-40 Mbps 384 kbps from 2.6
1440p (2K) 10 Mbps 384 kbps 1,2935
1080p 8000 kbps 384 kbps 1,0435
720p 5000 kbps 384 kbps 0,6685
480p 2500 kbps 128 kbps 0,3285
360p 1000 kbps 128 kbps 0,141

We see that all the most popular formats are reproduced without problems with an Internet speed of 15 Mbit / s. But to watch video in 2160p (4K) format, you need at least 50-60 Mbit / s. but there is one BUT. I don’t think that many servers will be able to distribute video of such quality while maintaining such a speed, so if you connect to the Internet at 100 Mbps you can never watch online video in 4K.

3. Internet speed for online games

By connecting home Internet, every gamer wants to be 100% sure that his Internet speed will be enough to play his favorite game. But as it turns out, online games are not demanding on the speed of the Internet. Consider the speed that popular online games require:

  1. DOTA 2 - 512 kbps
  2. World of Warcraft - 512 kbps
  3. GTA online - 512 kbps.
  4. World of Tanks (WoT) - 256-512 kbit / s.
  5. Panzar - 512 kbps
  6. Counter Strike - 256-512 kbps

Important! The quality of your online game does not depend on the speed of the Internet, but on the quality of the channel itself. For example, if you (or your provider) get the Internet via satellite, then no matter what package you use, the ping in the game will be much larger than that of a wired channel with lower speed.

4. Why do we need the Internet more than 30 Mbps.

In exceptional cases, I could recommend using a faster connection of 50 Mbps or more. Not many people will be able to provide such speed in full, the Internet to Home company is not the first year in this market and inspires confidence, the stability of communication is all the more important, and I want to believe that they are at their best here. A high speed Internet connection may be necessary when working with large amounts of data (loading and unloading them from the network). Perhaps you are a fan of watching movies in remarkable quality, or download large-volume games daily, or upload large-volume videos or work files to the Internet. To check the speed of communication, you can use various online services, but to optimize the work you need to perform.

By the way, the speed of 3 Mbit / s and lower usually makes network work a little unpleasant, not all sites with online video work well, and downloading files does not please at all.

Whatever it is today in the Internet services market there is plenty to choose from. Sometimes, in addition to global providers, the Internet is offered by small-town firms, and often the level of their service is also up to par. The cost of services in such firms is certainly much lower than that of large companies, but as a rule, the coverage of such firms is very small, usually within a district or two.

  (B / c or Bps, from English. bytes per second ) equal to 8 bits / s.

In telecommunications

In telecommunications, decimal prefixes are accepted, for example, 1 kilobit \u003d 1000 bits. Similarly, 1 kilobyte \u003d 1000 bytes, although in telecommunications it is not customary to measure speed in bytes / s.

In the architecture of computer systems

In the modern world, computers based on binary logic are widely used, which has its limitations. There is a minimally transmitted (addressable) block of information. In most cases, this is 1 byte. Computers can store (and address) only the amount of information that is a multiple of 1 byte (see Machine word). The amount of data is usually measured in bytes. Therefore, 1 KB \u003d 1024 bytes is used. This is caused by the optimization of computations (in memory and processor). Everything else depends on the size of the memory pages - the size of the I / O block in file systems is usually a multiple of the size of the memory page, the sector size on the disk is selected so that it fits into the size of the file system block.

Many drive manufacturers (with the exception of CDs) indicate a size of 1 KB \u003d 1000 bytes. There is an opinion that this is due to marketing reasons.

Standards

  • The International Electrotechnical Commission in March 1999, in the second amendment to IEC 60027-2, binary prefixes “ kibi"(Abbreviated Ki-, Ki-), « mebi"(Abbreviated Mi-, Mi-), etc. However, not all adhere to these terms.
  • GOST 8.417-2002, September 1, 2003 - “Units of quantities”
  • JEDEC 100B.01   en - standard for marking digital memory by which kilo \u003d 1024.
  • RFC 2330, May 1998 - “Framework for IP Performance Metrics.” The document is not an Internet standard, but can be used as reference material.

Practice

  • In Cisco equipment, when setting the speed, it is considered that 1 kbit / s \u003d 1000 bit / s.
  • Starting with MAC OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard displays in SI units.
  • On Windows, 1 KB \u003d 1024 bytes is used to display the stored information. [how is speed interpreted in the “resource monitor”?]
  • Many Linux builds, guided by standards, use 1 kbit \u003d 1000 bit, 1 kbit \u003d 1024 bit.
  • It is possible that some application programs when calculating the speed consider that 1 Kb \u003d 1024 bits.
  • Different providers offer different tariff rates. For example, one provider may consider that 1 Mb \u003d 1024 Kb, another that 1 Mb \u003d 1000 Kb (despite the fact that in both cases 1 Kb \u003d 1000 bits) [ ]. Such a mismatch is not always a misunderstanding, for example, if streams are used on the provider's network, the speeds will always be a multiple of 64. Some people and organizations avoid ambiguity by using the expression “thousand bits” instead of “kilobits”, etc.

An example of the correspondence of units for both approaches is given in the table:

Common mistakes

  • Beginners are often confused kilobits   c kilobytes, expecting a speed of 256 kB / s from a 256 kbit / s channel.

It must be remembered that 1 byte contains 8 bits. In order to find out the data transfer rate in units usually used to determine the amount of stored information (bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, etc.), you need to convert to bytes, divide the channel speed by 8, and get the speed in bytes. Examples:

The speed is 512 kbps 512 * 1000 \u003d 512,000 bps 512,000 / 8 \u003d 64,000 bytes / s 64,000 / 1,024 \u003d 62.5 KiB / s 64,000 / 1000 \u003d 64 kilobytes / s The speed is 16 Mbps s 16 * 1000 * 1000 \u003d 16,000,000 bps 16,000,000 / 8 \u003d 2,000,000 bytes / s 2,000,000 / 1,024 / 1,024 \u003d 1.9 MiB / s 2,000,000 / 1,000 / 1,000 \u003d 2 megabytes / s s The speed is 4 Mbps \u003d 4,000,000 bit / s \u003d 500,000 bytes / s \u003d 0.4768 MiB / s \u003d 488.3 KiB / s \u003d 0.5000 megabytes / s \u003d 500.0 kilobytes / s

  • Some hard drives do not have sufficient read / write speed to ensure full load of the network channel (for example, 100 Mb / s). Also, tire saturation may be a limiting factor. This must be considered before contacting the provider with a complaint about low speed.
  • Often confused bit / c and baud.

see also

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Bit per second passage

“Ah, my friend, he is very unhappy,” she said. “If the truth that we heard is terrible.” And did we think when we were so happy about his happiness! And such a high, heavenly soul, this young Bezukhov! Yes, I pity him with all my heart and try to give him comfort, which will depend on me.
  - What is it? Asked both Rostov, the eldest and the youngest.
  Anna Mikhailovna took a deep breath: “Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “they say, he completely compromised her.” He brought him out, invited him to his house in Petersburg, and now ... She came here, and this rip off her head behind her, ”said Anna Mikhailovna, wanting to express her sympathy to Pierre, but in involuntary intonations and half-smile she showed sympathy to rip off her head as she called Dolokhov. “They say Pierre himself is completely heartbroken.”
  “Well, all the same, tell him to come to the club,” everything will dissipate. Feast will be a mountain.
The next day, March 3, at 2 pm, 250 members of the English Club and 50 guests were waiting for dinner dear guest and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration. At first, upon receiving news of the Battle of Austerlitz, Moscow was perplexed. At that time, the Russians were so accustomed to victories that when they received news of the defeat, some simply did not believe it, while others sought explanations for such a strange event for some unusual reasons. In the English club, where everything was gathered that was noble, having the right information and weight, in the month of December, when news began to come, they did not say anything about the war and about the last battle, as if everyone had agreed to remain silent about it. People who gave direction to conversations, such as: Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, Valuev, gr. Markov, Prince Vyazemsky did not show up at the club, but gathered at home, in their intimate circles, and Muscovites who spoke with other people's voices (to which Ilya Andreich Rostov belonged) remained for a short time without a definite judgment on the cause of the war and without leaders. Muscovites felt that something was bad and that it was difficult to discuss these bad news, and therefore it was better to remain silent. But after a while, as the jury left the deliberation room, aces appeared that gave an opinion in the club, and everything spoke clearly and definitely. The reasons were found for the incredible, unheard of and impossible event that the Russians were beaten, and everything became clear, and the same thing was said in all corners of Moscow. These reasons were: the betrayal of the Austrians, the bad food of the troops, the betrayal of the Poles of Pshebyshevsky and the Frenchman Langeron, the inability of Kutuzov, and (quietly said) the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who had been entrusted to bad and insignificant people. But the troops, the Russian troops, everyone said, were extraordinary and did miracles of courage. Soldiers, officers, generals - were heroes. But the hero of the heroes was Prince Bagration, who became famous for his Shengraben affair and his retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone spent his convoy unabashed and beat off twice the strongest enemy all day. The fact that Bagration was chosen as a hero in Moscow was also facilitated by the fact that he had no connections in Moscow, and was a stranger. His face paid tribute to the fighting, simple, without connections and intrigue, Russian soldier, still connected with the recollections of the Italian campaign with the name of Suvorov. In addition, in giving him such honors, Kutuzov’s disagreement and disapproval were best shown.
“If Bagration weren’t, il faudrait l" inventer, [we need to invent it.] ”Said the joker Shinshin, parodying Voltaire’s words. Nobody spoke about Kutuzov, and some scolded him, calling him a court spinner and an old satyr. All over Moscow repeated the words of Prince Dolgorukov: “sculpting, sculpting and stucking,” consoled in our defeat by recalling past victories, and repeated the words of Rostopchin that French soldiers should be brought to battle with grandiloquent phrases, that the Germans should be reasoned logically, convincing them that more dangerous to run, rather than to go forward, but that Russian soldiers need only be held back and asked: be quiet! From all sides we heard new and new stories about individual examples of courage shown by our soldiers and officers at Austerlitz. He saved the banner, he killed 5 Frenchmen, he alone loaded 5 cannons. They also said about Berg, who didn’t know that he, wounded in his right hand, took his sword to his left and went ahead. They didn’t say anything about Bolkonsky, and only those who knew him wished that he had died early leaving a pregnant wife and an eccentric father.

On March 3, in all the rooms of the English Club there was a groan of talking voices and, like bees on a spring flight, scurried back and forth, sat, stood, converged and dispersed, in uniforms, tailcoats and some others in powder and caftans, members and guests of the club . Powdered, in stockings and shoes, liveried footmen stood at each door and tried hard to catch every movement of the guests and members of the club in order to offer their services. Most of those present were old, respectable people with wide, self-confident faces, thick fingers, firm movements and voices. This kind of guests and members sat in famous, familiar places and converged in famous, familiar circles. A small part of those present consisted of random guests - mainly young people, including Denisov, Rostov and Dolokhov, who was again a Semenov officer. On the faces of young people, especially the military, there was an expression of that feeling of contemptuous respect for the old people, which seemed to be saying to the old generation: we are ready to respect and honor you, but remember that all the same we have the future.
  Nesvitsky was right there, like an old member of the club. Pierre, at the request of his wife, letting go of his hair, taking off his glasses and dressed in a fashionable, but with a sad and dull look, walked through the halls. He, as elsewhere, was surrounded by the atmosphere of people who worshiped his wealth, and he treated them with the habit of reign and diffused contempt.
In years he should have been with the young, in wealth and connections he was a member of the circles of old, respectable guests, and therefore he moved from one circle to another.
  Old men of the most significant were the center of the circles, to which even strangers respectfully approached, in order to listen to famous people. Large circles were formed near Count Rostopchin, Valuev and Naryshkin. Rostopchin talked about how the Russians were crushed by the escaping Austrians and had to bayonet their way through the fugitives.
  Valuev confidentially said that Uvarov was sent from St. Petersburg in order to find out the opinion of Muscovites about Austerlitz.

As more and more of our daily activities are connected to the Internet, its speed has become a very important factor. In a world where people can legally download movies and watch television shows from their PCs, users do not want to sit and wait for a long time. Because of this, when buying a new broadband package, users are eager to find out how fast the connection will be established. Unfortunately, there is a small puzzle which is the problem of recognition between megabytes and megabytes.

Megabytes and Megabytes

Suppose you are interested in getting a new Internet service.
  You look at the speeds offered in a package that advertises "up to 50Mb / s." If you purchase this package, what do you think what will your download speed be?

It is easy to assume that "Mb / s" means "megabytes per second" and that if you connect this package, you can download files at a speed of 50 MB per second. However, carefully read the ad.

The lower letter "b" in this example is very important, because it shows that we are not talking about 50 megabytes per second. This Internet speed is actually advertised at a speed of 50 megabits per second, which is very different!

"Real" speed

So, if we are not going to download at a speed of 50 megabytes per second, what will bring you 50Mb / s? To answer this question, we need to look at megabytes and megabytes. To do this, it’s easier for us to remove the “mega” in both words and compare the difference between the bit and the byte. A byte consists of 8 bits, so we can say that a byte is 8 times larger than a bit, or mathematically, 1 byte \u003d 8 bits.

If we use this information in our megabytes and megabytes, then we can see that megabytes are 8 times more than megabytes, or 1 megabytes \u003d 8 megabytes.

Now that we know this, we can determine the speed in megabytes, at 50 megabits per second.

Given that there are 8 bits in the byte, we can take the value of 50 Mbps and divide it into eight. This gives us 6.25, which means we will load at a speed of 6.25 megabytes per second. This is much slower than we expected!

That’s why it’s so important to understand the difference between megabytes and megabytes.

What looks like a great deal suddenly becomes eight times worse after signing the contract. If you want to know if a company uses megabytes or megabytes, this is easy to do. Just remember that in megabytes the small letter “b” (Mb / s) is used, and in megabytes - “B” (MB / s).

Why use bits? Why not bytes?

Why do we use bits first? Wouldn’t it be much easier if companies simply advertised their speeds in megabytes and were not misleading?

From a marketing point of view, it’s more profitable to attract customers using megabits (50 Mb / s looks more impressive than 6.25 MB / s). However, the most reasonable explanation is that network data transfer rates are always measured: bytes are usually used when we calculate volume and size (500 GB hard drive, 10 MB file), and bits are used when we discuss how fast the connection is ( 50 Mb / s, Internet).

In fact, we measured Internet bit rate, since the first modems were invented more than half a century ago! This was obvious at that time, people were not worried about watching their favorite Netflix TV shows, but simply thinking about the speed at which one device connected to another. Thus, when the Internet service provider tells you the speed in Mb / s, it can simply use the standard that has remained since the invention of modems.

Why do not guarantee speed

Even after all these calculations and determining the download speed, it may not be ideal. If you look closely, you will notice that service providers advertise their connections as “before.” This is due to many factors: distance to the provider; the number of people using the Internet at one time; how well the provider supports its services. In short, this means that you do not always get the speed you pay for.

For streaming movies on the Internet, such as Netflix, your knowledge of how to increase your speed on the Internet can help.

Little hint

When looking for a new Internet service, it can be difficult to determine what the Internet providers are actually selling you. At first glance, the issue of megabits and megabytes is easy to understand. Just remember that 1 megabyte is equal to 8 megabytes, and you will no longer think about the speed of the Internet.

Hello dear readers of the blog site. What units of information do you know? Probably heard about bytes, bits, as well as megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes. However, it is not always clear how these quantities are related and how can I convert, for example, bytes to megabytes?, bits to bytes, and gigabytes to terabytes.

The difficulty lies in the fact that we are used to operating units in the decimal number system (everything is simple there - if you have the prefix “kilo”, then this is equivalent to multiplying by a thousand, etc.). But when measuring the volume of stored or transmitted information, values \u200b\u200bare used from the binary system, where for the translation, for example, megabytes into gigabytes, it will not be enough to carry out the usual division by a thousand. Why? Let's get it right.

What is a byte / bit and how many bits are in a byte?

Described below information units   used in computer technology, for example, to measure the amount of RAM or the volume of hard drives. The smallest unit of information is called a bit, then a byte follows, well, then derivatives of a byte follow: kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, etc. What is noteworthy, despite the prefixes kilo-, mega-, giga-, converting these values \u200b\u200binto bytes is not a task, because a simple multiplication by a thousand, a million, or a billion is not applicable here. Why? Read below.

Similar units are also used to measure the speed of information transfer (for example, via an Internet channel) - kilobits, megabits, gigabits, etc. Since this is speed, this means the number of bits (kilobits, megabits, gigabits, etc.) transmitted per second. How many bits are in a byte and how to convert kilobytes to kilobits? Let's talk about it right now and talk.

As you all know, a computer only works with numbers in the binary system, namely with zeros and ones ("Boolean algebra", if anyone went to college or school). One bit of information is a bit and it can take only two values \u200b\u200b- zero or one (there is a signal - there is no signal. I think that with the question what is bit   it became more or less clear.

Move on. What then is a byte?   This is a bit more complicated. One byte consists of eight bits   (in the binary system), each of which is a deuce in degree (starting from zero to two in the seventh - it is considered from right to left), as shown in the figure below:

It can also be written as:

11101001

It’s not difficult to understand that there can only be all possible combinations of zeros and ones in such a construction 256   (just such a volume of information can be encoded in one byte) By the way, translating a number from binary to decimal is pretty simple. You just need to add up all the powers of two in those bits where the ones are. It’s easier, right?

See for yourself. In our example, the number 233 is encoded in one byte. How can this be understood? We simply add up the powers of two where the unity is (i.e. there is a signal). Then it turns out we take one (2 to the power of zero), add eight (two to the power of 3), plus 32 (two to the fifth power), plus 64 (to the sixth), plus 128 (two to the seventh). Total gets 233 in decimal. As you can see, everything is very simple.

In the above figure, I broke one byte into two parts of four bits. Each of these parts is called nibble or nibble. In one nibble, with the help of four bits it is possible to encode just any hexadecimal number (a digit from 0 to 15, or rather to F, because the numbers following the nine in the hexadecimal system are denoted by the letters from the beginning of the English alphabet). But this is not the point.

How many megabytes are in megabytes?

Let’s make it even clearer. Very often, Internet speed is measured in kilobits, megabits and gigabits, but, for example, programs give out speed in kilobytes, megabytes ... And how much will it be in bytes? How to convert megabytes to megabytes?. Everything is simple and without pitfalls. If in one byte 8 bits, then in one kilobyte 8 kilobits, and in one megabyte - 8 megabits. All clear? Same thing with gigabits, terabits, etc. Reverse translation is done by dividing by eight.

How many megabytes are in 1 gigabyte (bytes and kilobytes in megabytes)?

The answer to this question will no longer be so prosaic. The fact is that historically it happened that to indicate units of information that are significantly larger than bytes, incorrect terms are used   (or rather - not at all true). The fact is that, for example, the prefix “kilo” means multiplication by ten in the third degree, i.e. 10 3 (per thousand), “mega” - multiplication by 10 6 (tobish by a million), “giga” - by 10 9, “tera” - by 10 12, etc.

But this is a decimal system, you say, and bits and bytes are binary. And you will be absolutely right. And the binary system has a different terminology and, most importantly, another counting system   - how many bytes are contained in 1 kilobyte (how many kilobytes are in 1 megabyte, how many megabytes are in 1 gigabyte and ...). Everything is based not on tens degrees (as in the decimal system, which uses the prefixes kilo, mega, tera ...), but on the powers of two   (in which other prefixes are already used: kibi, mebis, gibi, tebi, etc.).

Those. in theory, to indicate large units of information   names should be used: kibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte, tebibyte, etc. But for a number of reasons (the habit, and not very harmonious, these units turned out, especially in the Russian version yobibyte sounds cool, instead of yotabyte), these correct names did not take root, and instead of them they began to use incorrect ones, i.e. megabytes, terabytes, yotabytes, and others that, in fairness, cannot be used in a binary system.

This is where all the confusion comes from. We all know that “kilo” is a multiplication by 10 3 (thousand). It is logical to assume that kilobytes is simply 1000 bytes, but it is not. We are told that 1 kilobyte 1024 bytes. And this is true, because, as I already explained a little above, initially they began to use the wrong terminology and continue to do so until now.

How are kilo, mega, gig and other large bytes converted to regular bytes? As I said, in powers of two.

  1. How many bytes in 1 kilobyte are 2 10 (two to the tenth power) or the same 1024 bytes
  2. And how many bytes in 1 megabyte are 2 20 (two in the twentieth) or 1048576 bytes (which is equivalent to 1024 times 1024)
  3. And how many bytes in 1 gigabyte - 2 30 or 107374824 bytes (1024 × 1024x1024)
  4. 1 kilobyte \u003d 1024 bytes, 1 megabyte \u003d 1024 kilobytes, 1 gigabyte \u003d 1024 megabytes and 1 terabyte \u003d 1024 gigabytes

How to convert kilobytes to bytes, and megabytes to gigabytes and terabytes?

Full table (for comparison, the decimal system is also given) convert bytes to kilograms, mega, gigabytes and terabytes   given below:

Decimal systemBinary system
TitleDimensionTen in ...TitleDimensionDeuce in ...
byteB10 0 byteAT2 0
kilobytekB10 3 kibibyteKiB Kbytes2 10
megabyteMB10 6 mebibyteMiB MB2 20
gigabytebyteGB10 9 bendbyteGiB GB2 30
terabyteTB10 12 youbyteTiB TB2 40
petabytePB10 15 pebibytePiB Pbytes2 50
exabyteEB10 18 exbybyteEiB Ebayt2 60
zettabyteZb10 21 zebibyteZiB Zb2 70
yottabyteYb10 24 yobibyteYiB Ybyte2 80

Focusing on the above table, you can make any recount, but you need to consider that you should compare the names from the decimal system with the formula for calculating from binary.

To simplify   “Unnecessary” data from the table can simply be removed:

TitleDimensionByte Formula
byteAT2 0
kilobyteKB2 10
megabyteMB2 20
gigabytebyteGB2 30
terabyteTB2 40
petabyteBytes2 50
exabyteEBayt2 60
zettabyteZb2 70
yottabyteYb2 80

let's a little work out:

  1. How many megabytes in 1 gigabyte? That's right, 2 10 (calculated by dividing 2 30 by 2 20) or 1024 megabytes in one gigabyte.
  2. And how many kilobytes are in megabytes? Yes, the same number is 1024 (calculated by dividing 2 20 by 2 10).
  3. And how many kilobytes in 1 terabyte? This is a bit more complicated, because we need to divide 2 40 into 2 10, which will give us as a result 2 30 or 1073741824 kilobytes contained in one terabyte (and not a billion, as it would be in the decimal system).
  4. What needs to be done to convert bytes to megabytes? We look at the table: divide the existing number of bytes by 2 20 (by 107374824). Those. you do not just divide by a million, as in the decimal system (actually moving the comma to the left by six digits), but divide by a number slightly larger, as a result of which you get a megabyte less than you expected.
  5. How many bytes are in 1 kilobyte? Obviously, 2 10 or 1024 bytes in one kilobyte.

I think that the principle is clear to you.

Why does a terabyte hard drive have a size of 900 gigabytes?

However, many manufacturers of hard drives use the confusion described above. You never was surprised that having bought, for example, a 1 terabyte disk, after installing it in a computer and formatting, you get a little more than 900 gigabytes. Where do almost ten percent of the railway size declared by the manufacturer disappear?

The fact is that, for example, when measuring the amount of RAM, they always use a binary (correct) system of calculation, when 1 kilobyte is equal to 1024 bytes, but hard drive manufacturers   went to the trick and consider the sizes of their products in decimal   megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes. What does this mean and what is the gain in practice?

Well, see for yourself - they have one kilobyte of memory containing 1000 bytes. It seems to be a nonsense difference, but with the current sizes of hard drives measured in terabytes, everything translates into a loss of tens of gigabytes.

Thus, it turns out that a terabyte disk simply contains 10 12 bytes (trillion). However, when formatting such a disk, the calculation will be carried out using the correct binary system and as a result we will get from the trillion bytes only 0.9094947017729282379150390625 real (not decimal) terabytes. To recalculate, you just need to divide 10 12 into 2 40 - see the above comparative table.

That's all. With such a simple trick, they sell us goods ten percent less useful than we expect. From the legal point of view, you won’t dig in there, but from the ordinary point of view of the average person, we are pretty decently misled. True, depending on the manufacturer, the figure may vary slightly, but a terabyte will still fail in the end.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the blog pages site

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