About Data Transfer Rate

Data transfer rate measures how quickly data moves across a network or storage interface. The fundamental unit is bits per second (bps). Internet service providers and network hardware manufacturers typically advertise speeds in megabits per second (Mbps) or gigabits per second (Gbps), while file transfer speeds displayed by operating systems use megabytes per second (MB/s) — causing the common confusion that a "100 Mbps" connection only downloads at "12.5 MB/s".

The key conversion is 8 bits = 1 byte. All data-rate prefixes (K, M, G, T) are decimal (powers of 1000) per SI convention, unlike storage where binary prefixes (KiB, MiB) are also in use. A modern NVMe SSD reads at ~7,000 MB/s; a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port maxes out at 10 Gbps (1,250 MB/s); Wi-Fi 6 reaches up to 9.6 Gbps theoretical.

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