A Gigabit is 10 ^ 9 or 1,000,000,000 bits.
A gigabit (abbreviated “Gb”) is the same as 1,000 megabits or 1,000,000 kilobits. It is one-eighth the size of a gigabyte (GB).
Gigabits are the most commonly used for measuring data transfer rates in local networks and I / O connections.
For example, Gigabit Ethernet is a very common Ethernet standard that supports data transfer rates a gigabit per second (Gbps) in a wired Ethernet network.
Modern I / O technologies, such as USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, are also measured in gigabits per second. USB 3.0 can transfer data up to 5 Gbps; Thunderbolt 1.0 can do data transfer bi-directionally at a speed of 10 Gbps.
Although gigabits and gigabytes sound very similar, these two words should not be confused. 1 byte has eight bits, while 1 gigabyte also has 8 gigabits.
Gigabits are often used to describe data transfer speeds, while gigabytes measure data storage.
