Lounge - Everything non-product related

[BudVitoff]

When you're talking about storage, naturally the "B" in MB, GB, TB, et al stands for "bytes", or eight-bit chunks.  When you're talking about transmission rates, though, I'm never really sure if mbs means megabytes or megabits -- after all, we're talking about a factor of eight, so I'd like to be sure.

[drmemory · Accepted solution]

MB = MegaByte

Mb = Megabit

kB = kiloByte

kb = kilobit

there is no mb when describing storage size or transfer rate in hard drives or computer memory. The person is using incorrect terminology.

[BudVitoff]

Ah-hah, the old upper/lower case trick, just like Tablespoon and teaspoon in cooking.  Thanks for clearing it up.

BUT, did you intentionally upper-case the M but not the k?

[drmemory]

Yes, kilo is normally lower case, though many people still use an upper case for kilo - probably because there aren't conflicting electronic meanings for it, like the case with B and b.

Mega should always be a M (upper case).