Gbps to KB/s

1 gigabit per second equals 125,000 kilobytes per second exactly.

1 gigabit per second = 125,000 kilobytes per second

How to convert gigabits per second to kilobytes per second

To convert gigabits per second to kilobytes per second, multiply the number of gigabits per second by 125,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilobytes per second by 0.000008.

kilobytes per second = gigabits per second × 125,000

Example: 10 gigabits per second = 1,250,000 kilobytes 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)

ComputingCurrent unit

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)

Kilobyte Per Second (kB/s)

ComputingCurrent unit

1,000 bytes per second (8 kbps). Download managers and browsers show speeds in kB/s.

Few units have had a messier history than the kilobyte. Computers had long used kilo for 1,024 because it is close to 1,000, and early floppy disks show the muddle: the Shugart SA-400 of 1976 held 109,375 bytes and was advertised as 110 Kbyte, while the Tandon double-density drive of 1978 held 368,640 bytes and was advertised as 360 KB. In 1998 the IEC specified that kilobyte should refer only to 1,000 bytes and created the kibibyte for 1,024.

The internationally recommended symbol is kB, and a kilobyte per second is 1,000 bytes per second, or 8 kbit/s. Browsers and download managers often report speeds this way, which is why a connection sold as 8 Mbit/s shows up as about 1,000 kB/s on a file transfer. Some software still divides by 1,024 and labels the result KB, so numbers from different programs may differ by a few percent.

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

Sources: Wikipedia: Kilobyte; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Data-rate units

Related conversions

See all data transfer rate units.