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Data Rate Unit Converter

Convert data rates between bits per second (bps), kbps, Mbps, Gbps, and bytes per second.

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Formula

1 byte = 8 bits, 1 Mbps = 10⁶ bps

How It Works

Data rate (bandwidth) measures how many bits are transmitted per second. The key distinction is bits vs bytes: 1 byte = 8 bits. Kilobits per second (kbps), megabits per second (Mbps), and gigabits per second (Gbps) are used for network and serial link speeds. Storage and file transfer speeds are often quoted in kilobytes (kB/s), megabytes (MB/s), and gigabytes (GB/s), which are 8× smaller than their bit counterparts.

Worked Example

A 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet link: 100 Mbps = 100,000 kbps = 0.1 Gbps = 12,500,000 B/s = 12,500 kB/s = 12.5 MB/s. A UART at 115200 bps: 115200 bps = 115.2 kbps = 14,400 B/s = 14.4 kB/s.

Practical Tips

  • ✓For serial protocol budgeting: CAN is 1 Mbps max, SPI can reach 50+ Mbps, I²C tops at 3.4 Mbps (HS mode), USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps, USB 3.0 is 5 Gbps.
  • ✓Shannon's channel capacity sets the theoretical maximum: C = B × log₂(1 + SNR). A 20 MHz channel with 30 dB SNR supports up to ~200 Mbps.
  • ✓When sizing FIFOs and buffers, convert data rate to bytes/second and multiply by the worst-case latency or burst duration to find the required buffer depth.

Common Mistakes

  • ✗Confusing Mbps (megabits/sec, lowercase 'b') with MB/s (megabytes/sec, uppercase 'B') — 100 Mbps = 12.5 MB/s, not 100 MB/s.
  • ✗Internet service providers advertise speeds in Mbps (bits); download managers display in MB/s (bytes). A '100 Mbps' connection downloads at roughly 12.5 MB/s.
  • ✗In protocol timing calculations, forget to include overhead bits (start/stop bits, parity, framing) — a UART at 9600 baud with 8N1 format delivers only ~960 payload bytes per second.

Frequently Asked Questions

1 Gbps = 125 MB/s in byte terms. A mechanical hard drive reads at 100–200 MB/s; modern SSDs read at 500 MB/s to 7+ GB/s (PCIe Gen 4). Network speed is limited by the wire, disk speed by storage hardware.
Baud rate counts symbols per second; bit rate counts bits per second. For UART with binary signaling, baud = bit rate. For QAM-64 (6 bits/symbol), bit rate = baud × 6.
Standard 8N1 UART (8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit) uses 10 bits per byte including the start bit. At 9600 baud, maximum payload throughput is 9600/10 = 960 bytes/second.
Bluetooth LE: 1 Mbps physical, ~125 kbps effective. Wi-Fi 6: up to 9.6 Gbps theoretical. Zigbee: 250 kbps. LoRa: 0.3–50 kbps. 5G NR: up to 20 Gbps peak.

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