Difference between Megabit and Megabyte
These terms seem to be well driven from the I.T. world. Most people don’t understand the difference of the two. That’s because when computers were being invented, those people behind this didn’t think of the fact that maybe sometime in the future, regular people will use their technology. But actually, the only difference between the two is the sizes they hold.
Megabit
When we talk about digital information, one Megabit is the smallest value or unit. More like when you see a standard ruler wherein there are inches and centimeters, Megabit is more likely the centimeter but it only differs because it can hold a zero. It is almost like nothing when we say 1 megabit of information, hence, it takes more to represent any substantial information that’s why they’ve come up to grouping Megabits by 8 which is then called a byte.
Megabyte
The prefix “Mega” in relation with computers designates a multiplier of 220 which is a value of 1,048,576, meaning a single megabyte has that number of bytes. This also means that one Megabit consists of 1,048,576 bits.
The two terms have their own role in this world. When we say Megabyte, you would most likely prefer to as file sizes. This is strongly because file sizes are measured by Bytes, some of which larger sizes have changed prefixes such as Kilobytes, Gigabytes, and many more. Megabits on the other hand are used in measuring internet speeds.
Brief Summary:
-Both follow a standard factor of eight. A good example is when you download one file. If you have an internet connection consistently flowing at a speed of 1 megabit per second, it would take 160 seconds to download a file with a size of 20 megabytes since there are 8 megabits in one megabyte, not just only 20 seconds.
-Megabytes are used to measure file size while Megabits are used to measure the speed of internet connections.