Megabits to Bytes (Mb to B)

1 megabit equals 125,000 bytes exactly.

How to convert megabits to bytes

To convert megabits to bytes, multiply the number of megabits by 125,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply bytes by 0.000008.

bytes = megabits × 125,000

Example: 10 megabits = 1,250,000 bytes.

Decimal prefixes (kB, MB, GB) are powers of 1,000; binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, GiB) are powers of 1,024. Storage makers use decimal; Windows reports binary but labels it GB.

About these units

Megabit (Mb)

ComputingCurrent unit

1,000,000 bits (125,000 bytes). Internet speeds are advertised in megabits per second.

Megabit is the unit behind most internet plans: speeds are quoted in megabits per second, while files are sized in megabytes. Since a byte is eight bits, a megabit is one eighth of a megabyte, which is 125,000 bytes in decimal units, and an advertised speed in Mbit/s therefore looks eight times larger than the same rate in megabytes per second. Data transfer rates are usually measured in decimal SI multiples.

Writing it is tricky. The IEC symbol is Mbit and the IEEE recommends Mb, but a capital M with lowercase b is easy to confuse with MB, the megabyte. The binary counterpart, the mebibit, is rarely used. Memory chips are sometimes sized in megabits too, so check which unit a spec sheet is using before comparing numbers.

1 megabit = 125,000 bytes (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Bit; Wikipedia: Megabit

Byte (B)

ComputingCurrent unit

Eight bits. The basic addressable unit of memory and storage.

Werner Buchholz coined the word byte in June 1956 while working on the IBM Stretch computer; the earliest supporting document is dated 11 June 1956. He respelled bite on purpose, in his words to avoid accidental mutation to bit. At that stage a byte was any group of one to six bits, and a move to eight bits was considered in August 1956 and built into the design soon after. Louis Dooley later claimed he had coined the term around 1956 or 1957 on the SAGE project at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where it meant groups of four bits, but Fred Brooks credited Buchholz.

IBM's System/360 adopted the eight-bit byte, and its success made that size the standard. The symbol is a capital B, and the unambiguous alternative is octet, a word used in protocol standards such as RFC 791. A byte can hold 256 distinct values, enough for a letter of the alphabet in a simple character set, which is why files and memory addresses are counted in bytes.

The byte is the reference unit for digital storage on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Byte; Wikipedia: Binary prefix

Related conversions

See all digital storage units.