What does B stand for in MB/GB, bit or byte?

18,186

Solution 1

Byte. bit is lowercase. MB = Megabyte, Mb is megabit.

Solution 2

Byte for B, bit for b.

This is international standard.

Solution 3

Upper case B always means Byte, and lower case means bit.

For example when you see internet speeds listed in MB/s, that refers to MegaBytes per second, and when you see it listed as Mb/s that refers to Megabits per second.

Solution 4

The letter "B" stands for "byte".

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user1080381
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user1080381

Updated on June 03, 2022

Comments

  • user1080381
    user1080381 about 2 years

    In PC properties (i.e. My Computer -> Properties), what does B stand for in MB or GB. Does it define bit or byte?

    • NullPoiиteя
      NullPoiиteя over 11 years
      what this question makes sense here ?
    • NullPoiиteя
      NullPoiиteя over 11 years
    • mjv
      mjv over 11 years
      Better yet, check en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte which provides the rationale for the choices of B and b by the SI and/or IEEE committees, despite the possible conflict with the bel unit. PLEASE do make a minimal attempt at answering the question before posting on SO...
    • TOOGAM
      TOOGAM over 5 years
      Question is closed, but the better answer is, "B should be byte. b should be bit. Similarly, M should be 1024, while m is 1000." "should" referring to the most common usage that is most meaningful. However, there are plenty of exceptions where some people will just capitalize or lowercase based on their desires, MBPS (Megabytes Per Second) or mbps (megabits per second), with the p sometimes replaced with a slash. So, while it is best to treat B as byte and b as bit, and M as binary/base-2 and m as SI/base-10, when reading it's safest to just consider this ambiguously uncertain.
  • user1080381
    user1080381 over 11 years
    Thanks, didn't know that it's meaning was case sensitive.
  • Liggliluff
    Liggliluff over 7 years
    @user The same goes for M (mega) and m (milli)
  • Liggliluff
    Liggliluff over 7 years
    You are fully correct, however, people are lazily mixing B and b, so it's hard for me (who knows the difference) to know what it actally means when developers uses these letters interchangably. =(