Converters guide
Bits, bytes, and why your “100 Mbps” is not 100 MB/s
A “gigabit” home plan is 1,000 megabits per second, not a gigabyte per second. Divide by 8. Overhead, Wi-Fi, and the disk still steal from that.
Updated 2026-09-19
Storage vs the wire
bytes = bits ÷ 8. A 24-bit color pixel is 3 bytes if you ignore padding. File sizes on disk are bytes (or decimal MB). Link speeds are almost always bits per second.
MB/s = Mbps ÷ 8. 80 Mbps is 10 MB/s on a perfect pipe. A 1 Gbps plan is 125 MB/s before reality.
Time estimates
A 4.7 GB file at 50 Mbps is not “a few seconds.” Use the transfer-time calculator: size in decimal GB, speed in Mbps, then expect worse on Wi-Fi.
Key takeaways
- Eight bits in a byte. Always.
- Mbps to MB/s: divide by 8.
- The sales number is the wire, not the folder that appears on disk.