Gbps to B/s
1 gigabit per second equals 125,000,000 bytes per second exactly.
How to convert gigabits per second to bytes per second
To convert gigabits per second to bytes per second, multiply the number of gigabits per second by 125,000,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply bytes per second by 8×10⁻⁹.
bytes per second = gigabits per second × 125,000,000
Example: 10 gigabits per second = 1,250,000,000 bytes 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
Gigabit Per Second (Gbps)
1,000,000,000 bits per second. Fiber and Ethernet speeds are quoted in Gbps.
Gigabit Ethernet came in two stages. IEEE 802.3z, produced in June 1998, was the first version and required optical fiber. IEEE 802.3ab, ratified in 1999, defined 1000BASE-T over four twisted pairs of ordinary copper cabling, which is what turned a backbone technology into something that could reach desktops. Over time, one gigabit per second became a built-in feature of many computers.
A gigabit per second is 1,000,000,000 bit/s, or 125 MB/s once the eight bits in a byte are accounted for. At that speed an ideal transfer of a 4.7 GB single-layer DVD image takes about 38 seconds. Ten Gigabit Ethernet, first defined in IEEE 802.3ae in 2002 and extended to twisted pair by 802.3an in 2006, multiplies this by ten and is common in data centers. Cable and DSL providers also quote gigabit figures; the G.fast DSL standard from 2014 tops out at 1 Gbit/s.
1 gigabit per second = 1,000,000,000 bits per second (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Gigabit Ethernet; Wikipedia: 10 Gigabit Ethernet; Wikipedia: Gigabyte (DVD capacity)
Byte Per Second (B/s)
Eight bits per second.
Byte is a younger word than bit. Werner Buchholz coined it in June 1956 during the early design of the IBM Stretch computer, deliberately spelling it with a y so that nobody would mistake it for bit. At first it had no fixed size, and Stretch's early design allowed groups of one to six bits. Eight-bit bytes were then built into Stretch, and IBM's System/360 spread them widely in the 1960s. Another person, Louis Dooley, has also claimed to have coined the term at MIT Lincoln Laboratory around 1956 or 1957.
A byte per second is eight bits per second, the smallest rate counted in bytes. Protocol documents that need to avoid any ambiguity often use the word octet for exactly eight bits. The unit is tiny by modern standards. On serial links, start, stop and parity bits mean the line must run at a higher bit rate than the byte rate alone suggests.
1 byte per second = 8 bits per second (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Byte; Wikipedia: Bit rate; Wikipedia: Data-rate units
Related conversions
- B/s to Gbps (reverse)
- Gbps to bps
- Gbps to Kbps
- Gbps to Mbps
- Gbps to MB/s
- Gbps to Tbps
- Gbps to KB/s
- Gbps to GB/s
- Gbps to MiB/s
- Gbps to Kibit/s
- Gbps to Mibit/s
- Gbps to Gibit/s
- Gbps to KiB/s
- Bps to B/s
- Kbps to B/s
- Mbps to B/s
- MB/s to B/s
- Tbps to B/s
- KB/s to B/s
- GB/s to B/s
- MiB/s to B/s
See all data transfer rate units.