Gigabit
From Freepedia
| Multiples of bits | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SI prefixes | Binary prefixes | |||||
| Name | Symbol | Multiple | Name | Symbol | Multiple | |
| kilobit | kbit | 103 (or 210) | kibibit | Kibit | 210 | |
| megabit | Mbit | 106 (or 220) | mebibit | Mibit | 220 | |
| gigabit | Gbit | 109 (or 230) | gibibit | Gibit | 230 | |
| terabit | Tbit | 1012 (or 240) | tebibit | Tibit | 240 | |
| petabit | Pbit | 1015 (or 250) | pebibit | Pibit | 250 | |
| exabit | Ebit | 1018 (or 260) | exbibit | Eibit | 260 | |
| zettabit | Zbit | 1021 (or 270) | ||||
| yottabit | Ybit | 1024 (or 280) | ||||
A gigabit is a unit of information or computer storage, abbreviated Gbit or sometimes Gb.
1 gigabit = 109 = 1,000,000,000 bits (which is equal to 125 decimal megabytes) or 230 (= 1024 Mb = 1,048,576 Kb) = 1,073,741,824 bits (which is equal to 128 binary megabytes) (see Binary prefix).
The gigabit is closely related to the gibibit, which is unambiguously equal to 230 bits = 1,073,741,824 bits.
Note that the difference between a billion bits and a gibibit is fully 7%. This is sufficient to make it economically compelling to represent certain classes of storage devices in (true) gigabits or gigabytes rather than gibibits/gibibytes. RAM and Flash chips are usually required to have a capacity that is a power of two, but other devices like disk drives need not.
See also
- gibibit
- gigabyte
- gigabit per second
- binary prefix
- orders of magnitude (data)
- Gigabit ethernet and 10-gigabit Ethernet
