Byte Converter: Convert MB to GB and calculate download time
Use the byte converter to convert between bits, bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB and PB, compare decimal (factor of 1000) and binary (factor of 1024) units side by side, and calculate download time, required bandwidth and monthly traffic. Free and no sign-up required; calculations run in your browser. For example, 1 TB is 1,000 GB or about 931 GiB.
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Results appear as you type. Decimal commas and decimal points are both accepted. Calculations are exact, with no rounding errors.
1 TB (Terabyte) =
0.9095 TiB
Tebibyte
Decimal units (KB, MB, GB, TB) and binary units (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB) are not the same. The explanation below tells you why.
Bits and bytes
bit · Bit
8,000,000,000,000
B · Byte
1,000,000,000,000
Bit units (network)
kbit · Kilobit
8,000,000,000
Mbit · Megabit
8,000,000
Gbit · Gigabit
8,000
Decimal (SI, factor of 1000)
KB · Kilobyte
1,000,000,000
MB · Megabyte
1,000,000
GB · Gigabyte
1,000
PB · Petabyte
0.001
Binary (IEC, factor 1024)
KiB · Kibibyte
976,562,500
MiB · Mebibyte
953,674.32
GiB · Gibibyte
931.3226
TiB · Tebibyte
0.9095
PiB · Pebibyte
0.0008882
MB or MiB? Two units that are often confused
One megabyte (MB) is 1,000,000 bytes; one mebibyte (MiB) is 1,048,576 bytes. In the SI system, the prefixes kilo, mega, giga, and tera always use a factor of 1000. Since 1998, powers of two (a factor of 1024) have had their own units: kibi, mebi, gibi, and tebi, written KiB, MiB, GiB, and TiB.
The confusion arises because both systems are used side by side in everyday life. Drive manufacturers and hosting providers use decimal units. Windows uses binary units but still displays “GB” and “TB” instead of “GiB” and “TiB.” A 1 TB drive has 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, which is 931.32 GiB, and Windows displays “931 GB.”
The storage is not missing: These are the same bytes counted in a different unit. Macs and many Linux tools show decimal or binary values depending on their settings, so it is worth checking the “i” in the unit.
| Decimal (SI) | Binary (IEC) | Binary is larger by |
|---|---|---|
| KB Kilobyte1,000 B | KiB Kibibyte1,024 B | 2.40 % |
| MB Megabyte1,000,000 B | MiB Mebibyte1,048,576 B | 4.86 % |
| GB Gigabyte1,000,000,000 B | GiB Gibibyte1,073,741,824 B | 7.37 % |
| TB Terabyte1,000,000,000,000 B | TiB Tebibyte1,099,511,627,776 B | 9.95 % |
| PB Petabyte1,000,000,000,000,000 B | PiB Pebibyte1,125,899,906,842,624 B | 12.59 % |
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What the byte converter is for
Data sizes, transfer times and traffic at a glance
Whether you need to convert MB to GB or calculate Backup duration, connection speed or a traffic quota, four calculators on one page answer common questions about data sizes.
Convert units
Convert between bytes, GB and TB in both directions, with decimal (1000) and binary (1024) side by side, plus bits, kbit, Mbit and Gbit.
Calculate download time
See how long a file or Backup will take at your speed, with an optional 5 or 10% protocol overhead.
Plan bandwidth
Find out what connection speed you need to transfer a given amount of data in an hour, a day, or another period.
Estimate monthly traffic
Convert a speed and average utilisation into monthly, daily and hourly traffic, then compare it with your server’s traffic quota.
Understanding storage specifications
Learn why a 1 TB drive appears as about 931 GiB in your system, and calculate which unit is being used.
Exact, browser-based and shareable
The calculation runs in your browser and uses exact fractions instead of floating-point numbers. Your inputs appear in the address bar, so you can share a calculation via a link.
How it works
How to use the byte converter
Get from input to result in just a few steps, for all four calculators on this page.
Step 1
Choose calculator
Choose a tab above: “Convert Units,” “Download Time,” “Required Bandwidth” or “Monthly Traffic.” Without a shared link, the page opens on “Convert Units” with 1 TB as the example.
Step 2
Enter value and unit
Enter the value using a decimal comma or point, and select the unit: bit, kbit, Mbit, Gbit, B, KB to PB, or KiB to PiB. A number like 1.000 with only one separator is ambiguous; enter 1000 instead.
Step 3
View and copy the result
The large card shows the counterpart to your unit, such as TB in TiB or Mbit in MB. The remaining units appear below, grouped into bits and bytes, network units, decimal (factor of 1000) and binary (factor of 1024). You can copy any value with one click.
Step 4
Calculate download time or bandwidth
Enter the data size or select 1 GB, 10 GB, 100 GB or 1 TB. For download time, enter the speed (or select 100 Mbit/s, 1 Gbit/s or 10 Gbit/s); for bandwidth, enter the period in seconds, minutes, hours or days. Set protocol overhead to 0, 5 or 10%.
Step 5
Estimate monthly traffic
Enter the speed and average utilization as a percentage (or select 10, 25, 50 or 100%). You’ll see the traffic per month, day and hour, based on a 30-day month.
Step 6
Share link
The address bar automatically includes the inputs from the active tab. Copy the link to share the calculation or bookmark it.
Decimal and binary
MB, GB and TB or MiB, GiB and TiB: decimal and binary
Decimal units (KB, MB, GB, TB) increase in steps of 1,000; binary units (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB) in steps of 1,024. Manufacturers and providers usually use decimal units, while many operating systems display binary values. That’s why a 1 TB drive appears as about 931 GiB in the system.
| Decimal (SI) | Equivalent in bytes | Binary (IEC) | Equivalent in bytes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 KB | 1,000 | 1 KiB | 1,024 |
| 1 MB | 1,000,000 | 1 MiB | 1,048,576 |
| 1 GB | 1,000,000,000 | 1 GiB | 1,073,741,824 |
| 1 TB | 1,000,000,000,000 | 1 TiB | 1,099,511,627,776 |
| 1 PB | 1,000,000,000,000,000 | 1 PiB | 1,125,899,906,842,624 |
A byte has 8 bits. Speeds are given in bits per second (1 Mbit/s = 125,000 bytes per second), file sizes in bytes.
Bits and bytes
Convert Mbit/s to MB/s
Internet connections are rated in megabits per second (Mbit/s, often written Mbps), while browser downloads are usually shown in megabytes per second (MB/s). One byte has 8 bits, so divide by 8: 100 Mbit/s is at most 12.5 MB/s.
| Connection speed | Maximum in MB/s |
|---|---|
| 16 Mbit/s | 2 MB/s |
| 50 Mbit/s | 6.25 MB/s |
| 100 Mbit/s | 12.5 MB/s |
| 250 Mbit/s | 31.25 MB/s |
| 500 Mbit/s | 62.5 MB/s |
| 1 Gbit/s | 125 MB/s |
| 10 Gbit/s | 1,250 MB/s |
Calculated without protocol overhead. On the “Download Time” tab, you can see the effective speed in Mbit/s and MB/s after subtracting 5 or 10% overhead.
Download time
Calculate download time: How long will a download take?
Estimates at full connection speed with no overhead. In practice, the protocol adds around 5 to 10%.
| Data size | 100 Mbit/s | 1 Gbit/s | 10 Gbit/s |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | 1 min. 20 sec. | 8 sec. | 0.8 sec. |
| 10 GB | 13 min. 20 sec. | 1 min. 20 sec. | 8 sec. |
| 20 GB | 26 min. 40 sec. | 2 min. 40 sec. | 16 sec. |
| 50 GB | 1 hr. 6 min. 40 sec. | 6 min. 40 sec. | 40 sec. |
| 100 GB | 2 hr. 13 min. 20 sec. | 13 min. 20 sec. | 1 min. 20 sec. |
| 1 TB | 22 hr. 13 min. 20 sec. | 2 hr. 13 min. 20 sec. | 13 min. 20 sec. |
Calculate how much traffic a connection generates per month in the “Traffic per month” tab.
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FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about bytes, MB, GB and TB, download time, bandwidth and traffic.
In decimal (SI), 1 TB is exactly 1,000 GB, as drive manufacturers and many hosting providers calculate it. In binary (IEC), 1 TiB is exactly 1,024 GiB. A 1 TB drive has 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, or about 931 GiB. Windows displays this as “931 GB,” so no storage is missing—the unit is just different. The byte converter shows both values side by side.
Both are used: 1 GB is 1,000 MB (decimal, SI), while 1 GiB is 1,024 MiB (binary, IEC). The “i” in KiB, MiB, GiB and TiB indicates a factor of 1,024. A megabyte (MB) is 1,000,000 bytes; a mebibyte (MiB) is 1,048,576 bytes, about 4.86% more. For TB and TiB, the difference is already around 10%.
Divide the number of bytes by 1,000,000 for MB or by 1,000,000,000 for GB. For MiB, divide by 1,048,576; for GiB, divide by 1,073,741,824. So 5,000,000,000 bytes is 5 GB or about 4.66 GiB. In the calculator, select “B” as the unit, enter the number and immediately see the other units.
One byte has 8 bits. An uppercase B means byte; a lowercase b means bit. File sizes are usually given in bytes, connection speeds in bits per second. Divide Mbit/s by 8 to get MB/s: 100 Mbit/s is at most 12.5 MB/s, and 1 Gbit/s is at most 125 MB/s. Confusing the two makes download estimates wrong by a factor of 8.
Convert the data size to bits and divide by the speed in bits per second. 1 GB is 8 Gbit, so at 100 Mbit/s the download takes 80 seconds; 100 GB takes 2 hr 13 min 20 sec, or 13 min 20 sec at 1 Gbit/s. In practice, protocols use some of the connection capacity, so the “Download Time” tab lets you account for either 5 or 10% overhead.
Divide the data size in bits by the available time in seconds. For example, transferring 450 GB in one hour requires 1 Gbit/s. The “Required Bandwidth” tab calculates this for you, shows the result in kbit/s, Mbit/s, Gbit/s and MB/s, and can factor in 5 or 10% overhead as a share of the connection. This raises the bandwidth by about 5.3 or 11.1%.
At full capacity around the clock, that’s 32.4 TB in a 30-day month. This is the upper limit: on average, a server usually uses only a fraction of its connection capacity. At 10% utilization, it would be 3.24 TB. On the “Monthly Traffic” tab, enter the speed and utilization and compare the result with your plan’s traffic quota.
The calculator uses exact fractions instead of floating-point numbers, so there are no rounding artifacts like 0.30000000000000004. You can enter up to 15 digits before and 12 digits after the decimal separator, using a decimal comma or point. A number like 1.000 with only one separator is ambiguous, so the tool shows a notice instead of guessing. The calculation runs in your browser, for free and without signing up.
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