Mbps to MB/s Conversion and Data Rate Units

Converts a data rate between bps, kbps, Mbps, Gbps and B/s, KB/s, MB/s, GB/s. Bits and bytes differ by a factor of eight, so 100 Mbps is 12.5 MB/s. The volume per hour is also shown.

This tool converts a data rate between bps, kbps, Mbps and Gbps on the one hand and B/s, KB/s, MB/s and GB/s on the other.

1 byte=8 bit1 \ \text{byte} = 8 \ \text{bit}

Line speeds are quoted in bits and file sizes in bytes. Mixing the two up puts an estimate out by a factor of eight, in one direction or the other.

Lower-case b, upper-case B

The b in Mbps is a bit; the B in MB/s is a byte. Nothing but the case of one letter distinguishes them, which makes the difference easy to read past. A 100 Mbps line carries 12.5 MB/s.

The prefixes are decimal

For data rates, k, M and G each multiply by 1000. The 1024-based prefixes used for storage capacity, KiB, MiB and GiB, are separate units and should not be mixed in.

Worked example

A rate of 100 Mbps is 12.5 MB/s, or 45 GB in an hour.

100 Mbps is one hundred million bits per second. Dividing by eight gives 12.5 million bytes per second, or 12.5 MB/s. Multiplying by 3600 seconds gives 45000 MB, which is 45 GB.

Points to watch

This is a plain conversion of units. Real transfers give up perhaps a tenth of the rate to the protocols themselves, so the payload delivered is always somewhat less.