A gigabit is a unit of information or computer storage, abbreviated Gbit (or Gb).
1 gigabit = 109 = 1,000,000,000 bits (which is equal to 125 decimal megabytes or 119.2 mebibytes, as 8 bits equals one byte)
The gigabit is closely related to the gibibit, which is unambiguously equal to 230 bits = 1,073,741,824 bits.
Note that the difference between a billion bits and a gibibit is greater than 7%. This is sufficient to make it economically compelling to represent certain classes of storage devices in (true) gigabits or gigabytes rather than gibibits/gibibytes. RAM and flash chips are usually required to have a capacity that is a power of two, but other devices like hard disk drives need not.
Last update: 2008-05-05 13:59:54 Gigabit | Copyright 2008 HubHip.com