Data Transfer Rate Converter
Convert between bits and bytes per second across kilo, mega and giga scales, including binary units.
How to use this calculator
- 1Enter the value you want to convert.
- 2Pick the unit you are converting from and the one you want.
- 3The table below shows the same value in every other supported unit.
How the calculation works
result = (value × factor(from) ) / factor(to)- factor
- How many bits per second one unit represents
Every value is converted to bits per second first, then out to the target unit. This means n units need n factors rather than n² conversion pairs.
The factor of 8 between bits and bytes is the single most common confusion here. Internet connections are sold in megabits per second; download managers report megabytes per second. A 100 Mbit/s connection downloads at about 12.5 MB/s at best, which routinely looks like a shortfall to people expecting 100.
Decimal units (kilo = 1,000) are standard for data rates, while binary units (kibi = 1,024) are standard for memory. The prefixes Kibit, Mibit and MiB exist specifically to make the distinction explicit, since "kilobyte" has historically been used for both.
Worked example
100 megabit per second to megabyte per second
- 1.One megabit per second is 1,000,000 bits per second, so 100 Mbit/s is 100,000,000 bits per second.
- 2.One megabyte per second is 8,000,000 bits per second, so divide: 100,000,000 ÷ 8,000,000 = 12.5.
- 3.Put another way, 1 Mbit/s = 0.125 MB/s.
Result: 12.5 MB/s
What this assumes, and where it stops
Assumptions
- Conversion factors follow the internationally agreed definitions of each unit.
Limitations
- Results are computed in double-precision floating point, which is exact to about 15 significant figures.
- Very large or very small values are displayed in scientific notation to avoid misleading precision.
Common questions
Why does my 100 Mbps connection only download at 12 MB/s?
Because it is not a shortfall — those are the same speed. There are 8 bits in a byte, so 100 megabits per second is 12.5 megabytes per second. Connections are advertised in bits and file transfers are reported in bytes, which makes the same number look eight times smaller. Protocol overhead accounts for a little more of the gap.
What is the difference between MB/s and MiB/s?
A megabyte here is 1,000,000 bytes (decimal), while a mebibyte is 1,048,576 bytes (binary, 1024²) — about 4.9% larger. Data rates conventionally use decimal prefixes and memory sizes use binary ones, which is why a "1 TB" drive shows up as roughly 931 GiB in an operating system that reports binary units.
Formula and content last reviewed on .
Results are estimates for information only, not professional advice.
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