GB/s to Mbps

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

1 gigabyte per second = 8,000 megabits per second

How to convert gigabytes per second to megabits per second

To convert gigabytes per second to megabits per second, multiply the number of gigabytes per second by 8,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply megabits per second by 0.000125.

megabits per second = gigabytes per second × 8,000

Example: 10 gigabytes per second = 80,000 megabits 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

Megabit Per Second (Mbps)

ComputingCurrent unit

1,000,000 bits per second. The unit of internet connection speeds; 8 Mbps is 1 MB/s.

Megabits entered everyday life through Ethernet. The original 10BASE5 version arrived in 1981 at 10 Mbit/s, Fast Ethernet raised the figure to 100 Mbit/s in 1995, and wireless followed, with 802.11b offering 11 Mbit/s in 1999. Telecommunications engineers had always meant exactly one million bits per second by the megabit, while computer memory vendors were stretching the word mega toward powers of two. That divergence is part of why the IEC later published separate binary prefixes.

Internet providers still sell service in Mbit/s, which is why a plan and a download counter seem to disagree. A byte is eight bits, so 100 Mbit/s is at most 12.5 MB/s, and a 1 GB file needs about 80 seconds at that rate under ideal conditions. Streaming is far lighter: YouTube video at 1080p is listed at roughly 3 to 8 Mbit/s with H.264, and 2160p at 8 to 35 Mbit/s. Real throughput is lower than the line rate because of protocol overhead.

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

Sources: Wikipedia: Bit rate (Ethernet, Wi-Fi and streaming rates); NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Megabit

Related conversions

See all data transfer rate units.