What is the difference between b/s, mb/s, Mb/s, and kb/s?
Linode
Linode Staff
In the Cloud Manager under inbound and outbound traffic, there are four different measurements. What is the difference between them? Is it bits or bytes?
1 Reply
jyoo
Linode Staff
The lowercase "b" refers to the unit "bits". As opposed to "bytes" which is how data storage is measured, "bits" are how data transfer is measured. Additionally, 1 megabyte is equivalent to 8 megabits.
In order of relative size: mb/s stands for millibits per second, b/s represents bits per second, kb/s stands for kilobits per second, and Mb/s stands for megabits per second. There are 1000 millibits in one bit, 1000 bits in a kilobit, and 1000 kilobits in a megabit.
You can convert bits to bytes and vice versa; the easiest way to do so is to use a calculator such as the one available via Google.