Compare/contrast common units of measure Flashcards
bit vs byte
A bit is the smallest unit of computer information. It’s essentially a single binary data point; either yes or no, on or off, up or down. A byte on the other hand is a unit of memory that usually contains 8 bits. This is because historically, 8 bits are needed to encode a single character of text.
kb vs mb vs gb vs tb
Bytes are expressed in large numbers using metric prefixes. Each increase in units represents 1,000 of the previous unit. A kilobyte (KB) is 1,000 bytes, and one megabyte (MB) is 1,000 kilobytes. One gigabyte (GB) is equal to 1,000 megabytes, while a terabyte (TB) is 1,000 gigabytes.
There are 1,024 terabytes (TB) in a petabyte and approximately 1,024 PB make up one exabyte.
bps vs Mbps VS Kbps VS Gbps VS Tbps
One kilobit per second equals 1,000 bits per second. This is sometimes written as kbps, Kb/sec or Kb/s but all of them carry the same meaning.
One megabit per second equals 1000 Kbps or one million bps. It’s also expressed as Mbps, Mb/sec, and Mb/s.
One gigabit per second equals 1000 Mbps, one million Kbps or one billion bps. It’s also abbreviated as Gbps, Gb/sec, and Gb/s.
Avoiding the Confusion Between Bits and Bytes
one KBps equals one kilobyte per second
one MBps equals one megabyte per second
one GBps equals one gigabyte per second
Because one byte equals eight bits, converting these ratings to the corresponding lowercase ‘b’ form can be done simply multiplying by 8:
one KBps equals 8 Kbps
one MBps equals 8 Mbps
one GBps equals 8 Gbps
To avoid confusion between bits and bytes, networking professionals always refer to network connection speeds in terms of bps (lowercase ‘b’) ratings.
For historical reasons, data rates for disk drives and some other non-network computer equipment are sometimes shown in bytes per second (Bps with an uppercase B) rather than bits per second (bps with a lowercase ‘b’).
Speed Ratings of Common Network Equipment
Most network equipment features Mbps speed ratings.
Home internet connections can range from low values like 1 Mbps up to 100 Mbps and even higher
802.11g Wi-Fi connections rate at 54 Mbps
Older Ethernet connections rate at 100 Mbps
802.11n Wi-Fi connections rate at 150 Mbps, 300 Mbps, and higher increments
High-end gear features Gbps speed rating:
Gigabit Ethernet supports 1 Gbps
Backbone network links that feed internet providers and cell towers support several Gbps
mhz vs ghz
Hertz (Hz) refers to the number of cycles per second with periodic 1-second intervals. One megahertz (MHz) equals 1,000,000 Hz. One gigahertz is equal to 1,000 megahertz (MHz) or 1,000,000,000 Hz. Gigahertz is often used to measure central processing unit (CPU) clock speed.
What is Hz in a computer
In the context of computer monitors, a hertz refers to the refresh rate. The refresh rate represents how many times per second the monitor updates the image on the screen.
In this case, a “cycle” is the basic unit that measures a CPU’s speed. During each cycle, billions of transistors within the processor open and close . This is how the CPU executes the calculations contained in the instructions it receives.
Clock rate
in computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components,[1] and is used as an indicator of the processor’s speed. It is measured in the SI unit of frequency hertz (Hz).
What is hz
The unit of measurement called a hertz (Hz), which is technically one cycle per second, is used to measure clock speed. In the case of computer clock speed, one hertz equals one tick per second.
