![]() So, when referring to values that are better measured as powers of 2, it makes more sense to define kilo, mega, and giga as 2 10, 2 20, and 2 30. This is why memory chips come in sizes like 1GB which means 2 30 bytes. Also, since a 32-bit processor can access 2 32 addresses, or 2 2 Giga-addresses of 8 bits each, it can use 4 gigabytes of memory. So 16 bits of address space can access 2 16 bytes of memory. Memory addresses are bound at powers of 2. Integer values are expressed as values using 8, 16, 32, or 64 bits, which are also powers of 2. So computer professionals started referring to 2 10 as Kilo, and 2 20 as Mega, and so on. By coincidence, 2 10 is roughly equal to 10 3. But computers use base 2, so quantities are better defined as powers of 2 rather than 10. The prefixes Kilo, Mega, Giga, and Tera come from the metric system, which was designed to use powers of 10, since we all use base 10. Why in the first place was 1024 bytes chosen to be 1KB instead of 1000? Since Kilo (etc) = 1000 everywhere else. ![]() (For the conversions to bits/s, I've assumed 8 bits/byte.) See the Wikipedia article on the Megabyte for more info. In your case, there is it "Mebibyte", or MiB (and when per second, MiB/s) and means 1024*1024 bytes. (And thus created all the confusion over which definition of a megabyte one is actually using.) However, in many contexts, 10 3 makes little sense, so different "binary" prefixes were introduced, such as the "Kibibyte", which is abbreviated KiB and always means 1024 bytes. The IEEE has proposed that computers should follow the SI prefixes, and use "Kilobyte" to mean 10 3 bytes, not 2 10 bytes, which has been done historically. are typically measured in megabits per second file transfers over the internet are measured in megabytes (or mebibyte, see next paragraph) per second. The context will most often clue you in on which is appropriate: wireless transmission speeds, ethernet cards, etc. In some really, really rare cases, "MB/s" could mean "megabits per second", but megabits per second is usually abbreviated to "Mbps" or "Mbits/s".
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