GB/s to Kbps

1 gigabyte per second equals 8,000,000 kilobits per second exactly.

1 gigabyte per second = 8,000,000 kilobits per second

How to convert gigabytes per second to kilobits per second

To convert gigabytes per second to kilobits per second, multiply the number of gigabytes per second by 8,000,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilobits per second by 1.25×10⁻⁷.

kilobits per second = gigabytes per second × 8,000,000

Example: 10 gigabytes per second = 80,000,000 kilobits per second.

Network speeds are quoted in bits per second (lowercase b), while file sizes use bytes (uppercase B). Divide Mbps by 8 for MB/s.

About these units

Gigabyte Per Second (GB/s)

ComputingCurrent unit

1,000,000,000 bytes per second (8 Gbps). Memory and fast SSD bandwidth.

The gigabyte grew out of the same habit of rounding 1,024 to 1,000. In 1998 the IEC published binary prefixes, reserving gigabyte for the decimal value of 1,000,000,000 bytes and naming 1,073,741,824 bytes a gibibyte. Disk makers have used decimal capacities since the first disk drive, which is why a drive sold as 400 GB can appear as about 372 GB in Windows, while macOS, iOS and Android report decimal sizes.

A gigabyte per second is 1,000,000,000 bytes per second, equal to 8 Gbit/s. At that rate a 25 GB single-layer Blu-ray worth of data transfers in 25 seconds, and one hour of standard-definition video at 2.2 Mbit/s, about 1 GB, would pass in a single second. A 10 Gigabit Ethernet link, by comparison, tops out near 1.25 GB/s. Memory and storage interfaces tend to be described in this unit because their bandwidth is far beyond what ordinary networks offer.

1 gigabyte per second = 8,000,000,000 bits per second (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Gigabyte; Wikipedia: 10 Gigabit Ethernet; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples

Kilobit Per Second (kbps)

ComputingCurrent unit

1,000 bits per second. Used for voice calls and low-rate links.

Kilobit rates belong to the age of telephone wires. In 1962 AT&T introduced the Bell 103A, a full-duplex modem that sent 300 bit/s over ordinary phone lines, and by 1976 the Bell 212A had reached 1,200 bit/s. Speeds then climbed in steps through the 1990s, until the V.90 standard approved in 1998 offered 56 kbit/s downstream, with 33.6 kbit/s going the other way. That ceiling defined the dial-up era for many home users.

A kilobit per second is 1,000 bit/s, using the standard SI meaning of kilo, and it is still the natural unit for anything lightweight. A digital voice channel using PCM takes 64 kbit/s. MP3 files are often encoded at 128 kbit/s as a mid-range setting, with 320 kbit/s the highest the format supports. Divide by eight to get bytes: 8 kbit/s is 1 kB/s, so a 56 kbit/s modem moves about 7 kB/s, and fetching a 1 MB file over it would take roughly two and a half minutes.

1 kilobit per second = 1,000 bits per second (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Modem (Bell 103, 212A, V.90 history); Wikipedia: Bit rate (voice and MP3 rates); Wikipedia: Kilobit

Related conversions

See all data transfer rate units.