Megabits to Kibibytes (Mb to KiB)

1 megabit equals 122.0703125 kibibytes exactly.

How to convert megabits to kibibytes

To convert megabits to kibibytes, multiply the number of megabits by 122.0703125. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kibibytes by 0.008192.

kibibytes = megabits × 122.0703125

Example: 10 megabits = 1,220.703125 kibibytes.

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

Kibibyte (KiB)

ComputingCurrent unit

Exactly 1,024 bytes (2¹⁰). The IEC name for the binary kilobyte, used by operating systems and memory specifications.

Kibibyte is the first of the names the IEC approved in December 1998 for binary multiples, built from kilobinary. The IUPAC's Interdivisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols had proposed binary prefixes in 1995, and the IEC published them in January 1999. The symbol KiB adds an i to the SI symbol, with the K capitalized. NIST says the names keep the first two letters of each SI prefix and add bi, to signal binary.

One KiB is exactly 1,024 bytes, about 2.4 percent more than a kilobyte. The standard is now IEC 80000-13, supported by the BIPM, IEC and NIST. In practice the symbols are rarely used outside a few places such as KDE and Qt-based applications, which can switch between SI and binary units. Donald Knuth jokingly suggested in 1999 calling it a large kilobyte, KKB.

1 kibibyte = 1,024 bytes (exactly).

Sources: NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Kibibyte

Related conversions

See all digital storage units.