What is the difference between GB and Gb?
Living in a digital world, you come across terms and abbreviations that sound familiar or that you partially understand. Yet, you often doubt whether you use them at the right place and at the right moment. That’s why you prefer to double-check with Google about their exact meaning.
The difference between GB and Gb is the perfect example of the statement above. You know that both abbreviations are part of the IT terminology, but you wonder why they are written differently. So it is a little blurry for people without specific IT knowledge to differentiate these technical terms. The article below explains what these terms mean and how to distinguish them, moreover, why it is important to know the difference.
What do GB and Gb stand for?
But first things first – to understand the difference between both abbreviations, we need to know their meaning. The terms GB and Gb are used as units of measurement. They are both related to digital storage space, and you can find them often in the context of the hosting industry. But this is where their similarities end.
What is Gigabyte?
GB (or Gbyte) is the more frequently used term for Gigabyte. It describes the memory or disk space of a computer, laptop, and any other device where you can store different files/data. Another field where you can find it often is hosting services – it describes the space given if you want to rent a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or dedicated hosting package and Internet plan.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary:
A gigabyte is a measurement unit of computer information consisting of 1,000,000,000 bytes. It is also a unit of measurement of computer storage space equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes, which is about 1000 megabytes.
One Gigabyte is equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes. It comes after megabytes (MB) on the scale and before terabytes (TB). One Terabyte is 1000 GB.
What is a Gigabit?
A gigabit is quite similar to a gigabyte since they both represent a measure of digital storage capacity and data transfer speeds. So how do bytes differ from bits? Shortly put – one byte equals eight bits.
According to the tech terms definition:
A gigabit is 109 or 1,000,000,000 bits. It is one-eighth the size of a gigabyte (GB), which means a gigabit is eight times smaller than a gigabyte. Additionally, Gigabits are mostly used to measure data transfer rates of local networks (Ethernet) and Input/Output (I/O) connections. The exact measurement is Gbps, which means Gigabits per second.
Why do we often confuse the two terms?
They sound similar, and this causes a lot of confusion among users who are not tech-savvy. Sometimes hosting companies use the terms and the abbreviations interchangeably when they try to sell their storage services, which is not a good practice and is customer-friendly. That way, you can be misled about the size of the storage space you pay for. If they have used gigabits as measuring units in the hosting plan and you do not pay attention, you will be unpleasantly surprised to find out that you have eight times smaller storage capacity than expected.
Why is it good to understand the difference between Gigabyte and Gigabit?
To sum up, Gigabytes are mainly used to measure data storage and download/upload Internet speeds, while Gigabits describe data transfer speeds in local networks. Usually, disk space, computer RAM, and bandwidth capacity are measured by hosting firms in Gigabytes (GB). If you see that your hosting provider uses gigabits as a measurement unit, you should know that you are getting eight times less storage space, RAM, or bandwidth than gigabytes.
So do not hurry to sign the contract for your service provider’s hosting plan unless you know if their packages include Gigabytes or Gigabits. If you are confused when looking at their plans, ask them how they measure the bandwidth or storage space they offer the clients. Whatever they explain, ensure you get what you pay for and nothing less.
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Contact our customer service in Braine l’Alleud to help you choose the best Internet package that matches your business needs.
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