What's 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 KB,” isn't it? Or, you could say "I have 8 kbps", which is actually exactly 56 kb, or 57.344 bits.

Let's take a closer look at how many megabits are in a megabyte.

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

Just imagine that these units of measurement would not exist, how would the same gigabyte be measured in that case? Since 1 gigabyte equals 8.589.934.592 bits, isn't it really more convenient to say 1 GB than writing such long numbers.

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 "kilobit" and "kilobyte".

  • Where, 1 kbit is 1024 bits, and 1 kb is 1024 bytes.
  • 1 kbyte = 8 kbit = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits

In addition, there are also "mbit" and "mbytes", or as they are also called "megabits" and "megabytes".

  • Where, 1 mbit = 1024 kbps, and 1 mb = 1024 kb.

Hence it follows that:

  • 1 MB = 8 MB = 8192 kB = 65536 kbit = 8388608 bytes = 67108864 bits

When you think about it, everything becomes simple.

Now you can guess how many megabits are in a megabyte?

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

  • 1 megabyte = 1024 kbytes = 1048576 bytes = 8388608 bits = 8192 kbits = 1024 kbytes = 8 Mbps
  • That is, 1 megabyte = 8 megabits.
  • Likewise, 1 kilobyte = 8 kilobytes.
  • As in 1 byte = 8 bits.

Isn't it easy?

So, for example, you can find out the time it takes to download this or that file. Let's say the speed of your Internet connection is 128 kilobytes per second, and the file that you download on the Internet weighs 500 megabytes. How long do you think the file will take to download?
Let's count.

To find out, you just need to understand how many kilobytes are in 500 megabytes. It's easy to do, just multiply the number of megabytes (500) by 1024, since 1 megabyte contains 1024 kilobytes. We get the figure 512000, this is the number of seconds for which the file will be downloaded, taking into account 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. 4000 remains, this is the time in seconds for which the file will be downloaded.

Convert seconds to minutes:

  • 4000/60 = ~ 66.50 minutes

Converting to hours:

  • ~ 66.50 / 60 = ~ 1 hour 10 minutes

That is, our file of 500 megabytes in size will be downloaded in 1 hour 10 minutes, given that the connection speed throughout the entire time will be exactly 128 kilobytes.
per second, which equals 131.072 bytes, or more precisely, 1.048.576 bits.

Today, the Internet is needed in every home no less than water or electricity. And in every city there are tons 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 do you choose the right speed and the right internet provider for yourself?

Of course, you need to choose the speed of the Internet 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 is quite suitable for me as a person who works on the network. Working on the Internet, I have 2 browsers turned on, and each has 20-30 tabs open, while problems arise more from the computer (for working with large quantity you need a lot of tabs random access memory and a powerful processor) rather than from the side of the Internet speed. The only moment when you have to wait a little is the moment you first launch the browser, when all the tabs are loaded at the same time, but this usually takes no more than a minute.

1. What do the Internet speed values ​​mean?

Many users confuse the Internet speed values ​​thinking that 15Mb / s is 15 megabytes per second. In fact, 15Mb / s is 15 megabits per second, which is 8 times less than megabytes, and at the output we will get about 2 megabytes of download speed for files and pages. If you usually download movies for viewing in the size of 1500 MB, then at a speed of 15 Mbps the movie will be downloaded for 12-13 minutes.

We are watching a lot or a little of your internet speed

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

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

2. Internet speed required to watch online videos

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

Broadcast type Video bitrate Audio bitrate (stereo) Traffic Mb / s (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 at an Internet speed of 15 Mbps. But to watch video in 2160p (4K) format, you need at least 50-60 Mbps. but there is one BUT. I don't think that many servers will be able to distribute video of this quality while maintaining such a speed, so having connected 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 at all demanding on the speed of the Internet. Consider the speed required by popular online games:

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

Important! The quality of your online game is no longer dependent on the speed of the Internet, but on the quality of the channel itself. For example, if you (or your provider) receive the Internet via satellite, then whatever package you use, the ping in the game will be much higher than that of wired channel at a lower speed.

4. What is the Internet for more than 30 Mbps.

In exceptional cases, I might recommend using a faster connection of 50 Mbps or more. Not many will be able to provide such speed in full, the Internet to Home company is not the first year in this market and quite instills confidence, the more important is the stability of communication, 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 (downloading and uploading them from the network). Perhaps you are a fan of watching movies in excellent quality, or you download large-volume games every day, or upload large-volume video or work files to the Internet. To check the connection speed, you can use various online services, and to optimize the work, you need to do it.

By the way, the speed of 3 Mbps and below usually makes working on the network a little unpleasant, not all sites with online video work well, and downloading files is generally not happy.

Anyway, there is plenty to choose from on the Internet services market today. Sometimes, in addition to global providers, the Internet is offered by small-town firms, and often the level of their service is also at a height. The cost of services in such firms is, of course, much lower than that of large companies, but as a rule, the coverage of such firms is very insignificant, usually within a region or two.

(B / c or Bps, from the English. b ytes p er s econd ) equal to 8 bit / s.

In telecommunications

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

In the architecture of computer systems

V modern world computers based on binary logic are widely used, which has its limitations. There is a minimum transmitted (addressable) block of information. In most cases, this is 1 byte. Computers can store (and address) only an 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 = 1024 bytes is used. This is due to computational optimization (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 as to be multiples of the file systems block size.

Many drive manufacturers (excluding CD-ROMs) specify a size based on 1KB = 1000 bytes. It is believed that this is due to marketing reasons.

Standards

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

Practice

  • In Cisco equipment, when setting the speed, it is assumed that 1 kbit / s = 1000 bit / s.
  • Since MAC OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard displays in SI units.
  • In Windows, 1 KB = 1024 bytes is used to display the stored information. [how is speed interpreted in the "resource monitor"?]
  • Many Linux builds, guided by the standards, use 1 kbit = 1000 bits, 1 kbit = 1024 bits.
  • It is possible that some application programs, when calculating the speed, consider that 1 KB = 1024 bits.
  • Different providers offer different rates. For example, one provider may consider that 1 MB = 1024 KB, another that 1 MB = 1000 KB (despite the fact that in both cases 1 KB = 1000 bits) [ ]. Such a discrepancy is not always a misunderstanding, for example, if streams are used on the provider's network, the speeds will always be multiples 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 with both approaches is shown in the table:

Frequent mistakes

  • Beginners are often confused kilobits c kilobytes expecting a speed of 256Kbps from a 256Kbps channel.

Remember 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 it into bytes, divide the channel speed by 8, and get the speed in bytes. Examples:

The speed is 512 kbps 512 * 1000 = 512 000 bps 512 000/8 = 64 000 bytes / s 64 000/1024 = 62.5 KiB / s 64 000/1000 = 64 kilobytes / s The speed is 16 Mbps s 16 * 1000 * 1000 = 16,000,000 bit / s 16,000,000 / 8 = 2,000,000 bytes / s 2,000,000 / 1,024 / 1,024 = 1.9 MiB / s 2,000,000 / 1000/1000 = 2 megabytes / s Speed ​​is 4 Mbit / s = 4,000,000 bps = 500,000 bytes / s = 0.4768 MiB / s = 488.3 KiB / s = 0.5000 megabytes / s = 500.0 Kbytes / s

  • Some hard disks do not have sufficient read / write speed to provide a full load of the network channel (for example, 100 MB / s). Bus saturation can also be a limiting factor. This must be taken into account before contacting the provider with a complaint about the low speed.
  • Bit / s and baud are often confused.

see also

Write a review on "Bits Per Second"

Excerpt characterizing Bit per second

“Ah, my friend, he is very unhappy,” she said. “If it’s true what we heard, it’s awful. And did we think when we were so happy about his happiness! And such a tall, heavenly soul, this young Bezukhov! Yes, I feel sorry for him from the bottom of my heart and will try to give him the consolation that will depend on me.
- What is it? - asked both Rostov, senior and junior.
Anna Mikhailovna took a deep breath: “Dolokhov, Marya Ivanovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “they say he completely compromised her. He took him out, invited him to his house in St. Petersburg, and now ... She came here, and this one rip her head off after her, ”Anna Mikhailovna said, wanting to express her sympathy to Pierre, but in involuntary intonations and a half smile showing sympathy, rip her head off, like she named Dolokhova. - They say that Pierre himself is completely heartbroken.
- Well, all the same tell him to come to the club - everything will dissipate. The feast will be a mountain.
The next day, March 3, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, 250 members of the English Club and 50 guests were waiting for dinner, the dear guest and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration. At the first time upon receipt of news of Battle of Austerlitz Moscow was perplexed. At that time, the Russians were so accustomed to victories that, having received the news of defeat, some simply did not believe, others were looking for an explanation for this. strange event for some unusual reason. In the English club, where everything that was noble, had correct information and weight, in December, when news began to arrive, they did not say anything about the war and about the last battle, as if everyone had agreed to keep silent about it. People who gave direction to conversations, such as: Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, Valuev, gr. Markov, book. Vyazemsky, did not show up in the club, but gathered at home, in their intimate circles, and Muscovites who spoke from other people's voices (to which Ilya Andreevich Rostov belonged) remained on a short time without a definite judgment about the matter of the war and without leaders. Muscovites felt that something was wrong and that it was difficult to discuss these bad news, and therefore it was better to remain silent. But after some time, as the jury left the deliberation room, the aces who gave their opinion in the club appeared, and everything began to speak 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 in all corners of Moscow they spoke the same thing. These reasons were: the betrayal of the Austrians, the bad food of the troops, the betrayal of the Pole Pshebyshevsky and the Frenchman Lanzheron, the inability of Kutuzov, and (they said quietly) the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who had entrusted himself to bad and insignificant people. But the troops, the Russian troops, everyone said, were extraordinary and performed miracles of courage. Soldiers, officers, generals - they were heroes. But the hero of the heroes was Prince Bagration, who became famous for his Shengraben affair and the retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone led his column undisturbed and fought off twice the strongest enemy all day. The fact that Bagration was chosen as a hero in Moscow was facilitated by the fact that he had no connections in Moscow and was a stranger. In his person, due honor was given to the military, simple, without connections and intrigues, Russian soldier, still associated with the memories of the Italian campaign with the name of Suvorov. In addition, in paying such honors to him, the dislike and disapproval of Kutuzov was best shown.
- If there were no Bagration, il faudrait l "inventer, [we ought to invent it.] - said the joker Shinshin, parodying Voltaire's words. Nobody spoke about Kutuzov, and some whispered him, calling him a court turntable and an old satire. Moscow repeated the words of Prince Dolgorukov: "sculpting, sculpting and stick around", consoled in our defeat by the recollection of previous victories, and Rostopchin repeated the words that French soldiers should be roused to battle with grandiloquent phrases, that one should reason logically with the Germans, convincing them that more dangerous to run than to go forward; but that the Russian soldiers should only be held back and asked: be quiet! New and new stories were heard from all sides about individual examples of courage shown by our soldiers and officers at Austerlitz. , that one loaded five cannons. They also talked about Berg, who did not know him, that he, right hand, took the sword to the left and went forward. They did not say anything about Bolkonsky, and only those who knew him closely regretted that he died early, leaving his pregnant wife and 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 footmen in stockings and shoes livery stood at every 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 well-known, familiar places and converged in well-known, familiar circles. A small part of those present consisted of casual guests - mostly young people, among whom were Denisov, Rostov and Dolokhov, who was again a Semyonov officer. On the faces of young people, especially the military, there was an expression of that feeling of contemptuous deference to the elderly, which seemed to say to the old generation: we are ready to respect and honor you, but remember that after all, the future belongs to us.
Nesvitsky was right there, like an old member of the club. Pierre, on the orders of his wife, had let go of his hair, took 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 an atmosphere of people who worshiped his wealth, and he treated them with a habit of reign and absent-minded contempt.
For years he should have been with the young, for wealth and connections he was a member of the circles of old, respectable guests, and therefore he passed from one circle to another.
The elders of the most significant formed the center of the circles, to which even strangers approached respectfully to listen famous people... Large circles were formed around Count Rostopchin, Valuev and Naryshkin. Rostopchin talked about how the Russians were crushed by the fleeing Austrians and had to blast their way through the fugitives with a bayonet.
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 entertainment is connected to the Internet, its speed has become a very important factor. In a world where people can legally download movies and watch TV shows from their PCs, users don't want to sit around and wait long. Because of this, when buying a new broadband package, users tend to know how quickly the connection will be established. Unfortunately, there is a small puzzle, which is the recognition problem between megabits and megabytes.

Megabits and Megabytes

Let's say you are interested in getting a new internet service.
You're looking at the speeds offered in a package that advertises "up to 50Mbps". If you purchase this package, do you think what will be your download speed?

It is easy to assume that "Mbps" means "megabytes per second" and that if you enable this package, you can download files at a speed of 50 Mb per second. However, please read the above announcement carefully.

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

"Real" speed

So, if we're not going to download at 50 megabytes per second, what gets you 50MB / s? To answer this question, we need to look at megabits and megabytes. To do this, it's easier for us to strip out the "mega" in both words and compare the difference between a bit and a byte. A byte is 8 bits, so we can say that a byte is 8 times larger than a bit, or mathematically, 1 byte = 8 bits.

If we use this information in our megabits and megabytes, then we can see that a megabyte is 8 times more than a megabyte, or 1 megabyte = 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 a byte, we can take a value of 50 Mbps and divide it by eight. This gives us 6.25, which means we will be downloading at 6.25 megabytes per second. This is much slower than we thought!

This is why it is so important to understand the difference between megabits and megabytes.

What looks like a great deal suddenly becomes eight times worse after the contract is signed. If you want to know if a company is using megabytes or megabytes, it's easy to do. Just remember that megabits use the small letter "b" (MB / s), and megabytes use "B" (MB / s).

Why use bits? Why not bytes?

Why do we use bits in the first place? Wouldn't it be so much easier if companies just advertised their speeds in megabytes and weren't misleading?

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

In fact, we have measured Internet bit rates since the first modems were invented over half a century ago! It was obvious at the time that people didn't bother watching their favorite TV shows on Netflix, they just thought about the speed at which one device connected to another. So, when your ISP tells you the speed in Mbps, it might just be using a standard that's left over from the invention of modems.

Why speed is not guaranteed

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, it means you don't always get the speed you pay for.

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

A little hint

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

Hello dear readers of the blog site. What information units do you know? You've probably heard about bytes, bits, as well as megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes. However, it is not always clear how these quantities are related to each other and how can one 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 with units of measurement in decimal system reckoning (everything is simple there - if there is a prefix "kilo", then this is equivalent to multiplying by a thousand, etc.). But when measuring the amount of stored or transmitted information, values ​​from the binary system are used, where for converting, for example, megabytes to gigabytes, it will not be enough to carry out the usual division by a thousand. Why? Let's figure it out.

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 size of hard drives. The smallest unit of information is called a bit, followed by a byte, well, and then there are derivatives of the byte: kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, etc. What is remarkable, despite the prefixes kilo-, mega-, giga-, recalculating these values ​​into bytes is not a task, because simple multiplication by a thousand, a million or a billion is not applicable here. Why? Read below.

Also, similar units are used to measure the speed of information transfer (for example, via an Internet channel) - kilobits, megabits, gigabits, etc. Since this is speed, it 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 kilobytes? Let's talk about it right now.

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

Go ahead. 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 two to the power (from zero to two in the seventh - counted from right to left), as shown in the figure below:

It can also be written as:

11101001

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

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

In the above figure, I have split one byte into two pieces of four bits. Each of these parts is called nibble or nibble... In one nibble, using four bits, you can 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 letters from the beginning english alphabet). But this is no longer the point.

How many megabits are in a megabyte?

Let's be clear. Very often, the Internet speed is measured in kilobits, megabits and gigabits, and, for example, programs give the speed in kilobytes, megabytes ... And how much will it be in bytes? How to convert megabits to megabytes?... Everything is simple and without pitfalls. If there are 8 bits in one byte, then in one kilobyte there are 8 kilobits, and in one megabyte - 8 megabits. All clear? It's the same with gigabits, terabits, etc. The reverse translation is carried out by dividing by eight.

How many megabytes are there 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 so happened that to designate units of measurement of information, significantly larger bytes, incorrect terms are used(or rather - not true at all). The fact is that, for example, the prefix "kilo" means multiplication by ten to the third power, i.e. 10 3 (per thousand), "mega" - multiplication by 10 6 (tobish per 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 in the binary system, the terminology is different and, which is especially important, other 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 powers of tens (as in the decimal system, which uses the prefixes kilo, mega, tera ...), but on powers of two(in which other prefixes are already used: kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi, etc.).

Those. in theory, to denote large units of information names should be used: kibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte, tebibyte, etc. But for a number of reasons (a habit, and these units are not very euphonious, especially in the Russian version it sounds cool yobibyte, instead of yotabytes) these correct names did not take root, and instead they began to use the wrong ones, i.e. megabyte, terabyte, iotabyte and others, which, 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 (one thousand). It is quite logical to assume that a kilobyte is simply 1000 bytes, but this is not the case. We are told that in 1 kilobyte 1024 bytes... And this is true, because, as I explained just above, they initially began to use the wrong terminology and continue to do so to this day.

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

  1. How many bytes in 1 kilobyte - 2 10 (two to the tenth power) or the same 1024 bytes
  2. And how many bytes in 1 megabyte - 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 = 1024 bytes, 1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes, 1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes and 1 terabyte = 1024 gigabytes

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

Complete table (for comparison, the decimal system is also shown) converting bytes to kilo, mega, giga and terabytes is given below:

Decimal systemBinary system
NameDimensionTen in ...NameDimensionDeuce in ...
byteB10 0 byteV2 0
kilo bytekB10 3 kibi byteKiB KB2 10
mega byteMB10 6 mebi byteMiB MB2 20
giga byteGB10 9 gibi byteGiB GB2 30
tera byteTB10 12 you byteTiB TB2 40
peta bytePB10 15 peby bytePiB PB2 50
exa byteEB10 18 exby byteEiB Ebyte2 60
zetta byteZB10 21 zebi byteZiB ZB2 70
iotta byteYB10 24 yobi byteYiB Ybyte2 80

Based on the given table, you can make any recalculation, but you need to take into account that you should compare the names from the decimal system with the formula for calculating from the binary.

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

NameDimensionConversion formula to bytes
byteV2 0
kilo byteKbyte2 10
mega byteMB2 20
giga byteGB2 30
tera byteTB2 40
peta bytePB2 50
exa byteEbyte2 60
zetta byteZbyte2 70
iotta byteYbyte2 80

Let's let's practice a little:

  1. How many megabytes are there in 1 gigabyte? That's right, 2 10 (calculated by dividing 2 30 by 2 20) or 1024 megabytes in one gigabyte.
  2. How many kilobytes are in a megabyte? Yes, the same is 1024 (calculated by dividing 2 20 by 2 10).
  3. And how many kilobytes are there in 1 terabyte? It's a little more complicated here, because you need to divide 2 40 by 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 should be done to convert bytes to megabytes? We look at the table: divide the available number of bytes by 2 20 (by 107374824). Those. you are not just dividing by a million, as in the decimal system (in fact, moving the comma to the left by six digits), but dividing by a slightly larger number, as a result of which you get a megabyte less than you expected.
  5. How many bytes are there in 1 kilobyte? Obviously 2 is 10 or 1024 bytes in one kilobyte.

I think the principle is clear to you.

Why is a terabyte hard drive 900 gigabytes in size?

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

The fact is that, for example, when measuring the amount of RAM, a binary (correct) calculation system is always used, 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 are the benefits in practice?

Well, look for yourself - they have one kilobyte of memory containing 1000 bytes. It seems that the difference is nonsense, but with the current size of hard drives measured in terabytes, everything results in the loss of tens of gigabytes.

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

That's all. With such a simple trick, they sell us a product that is ten percent less useful than we assume. From a legal point of view, you can’t get in there, but from the usual point of view of the layman we are pretty well misled. True, depending on the manufacturer, the figure may slightly differ, but a terabyte still won't work in the end.

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

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