How to use the data rate converter
- Enter the speed in Value. The default is 100.
- Choose its unit in From, for example Mbit/s (Mbps) from a broadband plan.
- Choose the unit you want in To, for example MB/s.
- Read the answer, the table of all 13 units, and the Ideal download time at this rate table for 10 MB, 1 GB, 10 GB and 100 GB.
What it does and when to use it
Speeds come in two families that look alike. Network gear, broadband plans and mobile tests count bits per second (kbps, Mbps, Gbps). Disks, USB drives, game launchers and file copy windows count bytes per second (MB/s, GB/s), sometimes in binary units (MiB/s). Mixing them up makes a connection look eight times faster or slower than it is.
Use this tool to check whether your download speed matches your plan, to compare an SSD’s MB/s with a network’s Gbps, or to estimate how long a large backup will take. For stored file sizes rather than speeds, use the digital storage converter. For time results in other units, the time converter helps.
How it works
Every unit is stored as bits per second.
| Unit | bit/s |
|---|---|
| kbit/s, Mbit/s, Gbit/s, Tbit/s | 10³, 10⁶, 10⁹, 10¹² |
| byte/s | 8 |
| kB/s, MB/s, GB/s, TB/s | 8 × 10³, 8 × 10⁶, 8 × 10⁹, 8 × 10¹² |
| KiB/s | 8 × 1,024 = 8,192 |
| MiB/s | 8 × 1,024² = 8,388,608 |
| GiB/s | 8 × 1,024³ = 8,589,934,592 |
Decimal prefixes (k, M, G) are powers of 1,000, as in the SI. Binary prefixes (Ki, Mi, Gi) are powers of 1,024, as defined by the IEC and explained on NIST’s binary prefixes page. The download time is the file size in bits divided by the rate.
Worked examples
A 500 Mbps fibre plan. 500 Mbps = 62.5 MB/s. The time table shows 1 GB in 16 s and 100 GB in 26 min 40 s, at best.
A USB drive copying at 25 MB/s. That is 200 Mbit/s (Mbps), so a 1 GB file needs about 40 s.
Gigabit Ethernet in binary units. 1 Gbps = 119.209289551 MiB/s, the figure many file managers show for a full gigabit link.
Limits and tips
- Upload and download speeds often differ on home connections. Convert each one separately.
- Times over a day are shown in days with three significant figures.
- The table rounds to whole seconds (or whole minutes above an hour) before splitting, so a time just under two minutes shows as “2 min 0 s”.
- For wider number ranges, the scientific notation calculator helps check very large results.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my 100 Mbps connection download at about 12 MB/s?
What is the difference between MB/s and MiB/s?
Is the download time table accurate?
How do I write the units so others understand?
Are file sizes in the table decimal or binary?
Sources
- Prefixes for binary multiples — NIST, accessed 2026-10-08
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