Gigabit

Gigabit

Gigabit: a unit of measurement of data equal to one billion bits.

Giga is the SI standard prefix for one billion, or 〖10〗^9, which is a one followed by 9 zeros.

While it follows the SI metric pattern in terms of being 1000 times the size of the previous term, it is not interchangeable with Gigabyte, because it is one- eighth the size of the GB.

Therefore it is an uneven conversion, and the switching of the two will cause considerable issues in terms of actual capacity.

This is especially important because bits are generally used as the measures for data speed, think USB ports, HDD transfer rates, etc.

These days most are measured in Gbps, as modern computing can handle such speeds.

Gigabit Ethernet is another common use of the term, so named because it is an Ethernet connection that can handle 1 Gbps of data transfer.

While gigabits and gigabytes sound similar, it is important not to confuse the two terms. Since there are eight bits in one byte, there are also eight gigabits in one gigabyte.

Gigabits are most often used to describe data transfer speeds, while gigabytes are used to measure data storage.

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