Difference between bit and byte.

What is currently measured in bits and bytes? The average PC user has practically forgotten about such units of information. And I would have forgotten completely, if not for the confusion between kilobits and kilobytes, in which travel speeds on the Internet are measured. Meanwhile, even from school, everyone knows that the prefix multiplies the initial indicator by a thousand. Trying to figure it out, the user divides, multiplies and finally gets confused in the jungle of arithmetic. Let's take the key concepts - bit and byte - and see what sauce they are eaten with.

Definition

Bit is the smallest unit of measure for the amount of information (like a letter in linguistics). In the binary system, a bit is equal to one digit.

Byte is a unit of storage and processing of digital information, which is a collection of bits that the system can process simultaneously (in linguistics, it would be called a word).

Comparison

There are 8 bits in one byte. A bit can be 0 or 1, a byte can range from 0 to 256. When it comes to data transfer rates, the bit / s and byte / s values ​​(Kbps and Kb / s, respectively) differ significantly. In kilobits, the connection speed is considered, or the amount of received / transmitted information per unit of time. The kilobytes usually display the download speed of the files. Thus, with a connection speed of 128 Kb / s, the download speed (in ideal conditions) will be 16 Kb / s, that is, a 160 KB document will be downloaded in 10 seconds.

Conclusions TheDifference.ru

  1. Bit is the minimum unit of measurement, byte is the unit for storing and processing digital information
  2. In one byte 8 bits
  3. When determining the connection speed, they usually operate with bits, the speed of downloading files - bytes.
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