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.

See also

• bit
• gibibit
• gigabyte
• gigabit per second
• binary prefix
• orders of magnitude (data)
• gigabit Ethernet and 10 gigabit Ethernet

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