How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate — (No Calculator Required)

Mixbozz
6 min readMay 26, 2021
How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate — (No Calculator Required)

Data Transfer Rate, It is calculated in many ways but there are two methods commonly used by people. But before I start this article we have to understand what is data transfer rate. How it works actually! It is the speed at which a certain amount of data is transferred over a given period or span. I will make it more simple for you if you are downloading or uploading something from online or transferring data from one source to another. Now you have to convert your units so the file size and transfer speed are in either bits or bytes with the same prefix (kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, or terabyte). Then, you have to put these numbers into the main equation (S = A ÷ T) in which A is the amount of data and T is the transfer time to solve for S, the speed, or rate, of transfer. Rather than you can also determine the amount of data or the transfer time if you know one of the variables plus the speed of transfer. How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate with Convert Units.

How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate with Convert Units:

1. Find the units relating to the file size. File sizes may be given in bits, bytes, Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes or even Terabytes ( Larger Part ). That’s why you have to pay more attention to whether the letters are upper case or lower case as well. For instance, a bit is denoted with a lowercase “b” while a byte is denoted with an uppercase “B”. This is one of the main contexts of data transfer.

Read more: Difference between bits and bytes

2. The first thing you have to do is note the units that citation of the transfer speed. Transfer speeds might be provided in bits per second , bytes per second, Kilobytes per second (K.B), Megabytes per second (M.B), or Gigabytes per second (G.B).

How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate

Value Order b/s Bit per second B/s Byte per second KB/s Kilobyte per second MB/s Megabyte per second GB/s Gigabyte per second TB/s Terabyte per second

3. The next step is to convert the units to either bit (b) or bytes(by) and confirm this, they have the same prefix. But before going to the transfer rate formula, ensure one thing. You are using the size and speed of the same units. So please Don’t worry about the time units for now. But before going How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate, we have to know the basics first.

  • 8 bits = 1 byte; turn bits into bytes by dividing by 8, or convert bytes to bits by multiplying by 8.
  • 1,024 bytes = 1 (KB); convert bytes to Kilobytes(KB) by dividing by 1,024 or turn Kilobytes(KB) into bytes(B) by multiplying by 1,024.
  • 1,024 Kilobytes = 1 (MB); change Kilobytes(KB) into Megabytes(MB) by dividing by 1024 or convert Megabytes(MB) into Kilobytes(KB) by multiplying by 1,024.
  • 1,024 Megabytes = 1 (GB); convert Megabytes(MB) into Gigabytes(GB) by dividing by 1024 or turn Gigabytes(GB) into Megabytes(GB) by multiplying by 1,024.
  • 1,024 Gigabytes = 1 (TB); change Gigabytes(GB) into Terabytes(TB) by dividing by 1024 or convert Terabytes(TB) into Gigabytes(GB) by multiplying by 1,024.
How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate

4. Convert between hours, minutes, and seconds as needed. As you know, there is 60 sec in 1 min and 60 min in 1 hr. To convert from sec to min, divide by 60. To convert from min to hr, divide by 60. To convert from hr to min, now multiply by 60. To convert from min to sec, multiply by 60. [Here I use, Minute = min / Hour = hr / Seconds = sec]

To convert from sec to hr, divide by 3,600 (60 x 60). Or, convert from hr to sec by multiplying by 3,600. Now you have to understand one thing, generally, the speed is denoted in sec. But If you have very many seconds, though, such as for large files, you can convert to min or even hours.

How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate Speed, Time and Data:

1. How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate by dividing the amount of data by the transfer time. Put the data (A) and transfer time (T) to solve for the rate, or speed (S), into the equation ( S = A ÷ T)

Take an example, you might have transferred 25 Megabyte in 2 min. First, convert 2 min to sec by multiplying 2 by 60, which is 120. So, (S = 25 MB ÷ 120 sec). (25 ÷ 120 = 0.208). Therefore, the transfer speed is 0.208 Megabyte/s. If you want to turn this into Kilobytes(KB), multiply 0.208 by (1024. 0.208 x 1024 = 212.9). So, the data transfer rate is also equal to V= 212.9 KB/s.

2. Let’s divide the total amount of data by the transfer speed to find out the data transfer time. If you want to solve for the transfer rate time (T) instead, input the same amount of data (A) and the rate (S) of transfer into the equation is (T = A ÷ S).

For instance, say you transferred 100 GB at a rate of 7 MB/s. First, convert Gigabyte to Megabyte so you’re working with the same units in every part of the equation. 100 x 1,024 = 102400. So, you transferred 102400 Megabyte at a rate of 7 MB/s. To solve for T, divide 102400 by 7, which is 14628.57. Therefore, it took 14628.57 sec. Now convert this to hours, divide by 3,600, which is 4.07. In other words, it took 4.06 hrs to transfer 100 GB at a rate of 7 MB/s.

Next, If you want to use hrs and mins, then separate the whole number and decimal: you have 4 hours and .07 hrs. To convert .07 hrs to mins, multiply by 60. (0.07 x 60 = 4.2). Then convert the decimal number into sec, and multiply it by 60. (0.7 x 60 = 4.2). I’m sure it took 4 hours, 4 min, and 42 sec.

3. Then How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate, Multiply the transfer time by the data transfer speed to find out the exact amount of data transferred. To figure out how much data was transferred, use the formula (A = T x S), which means A is the amount of data, T is the transfer time, and here S is the rate of transfer.

How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate

Take an example, you can figure out how much data was transferred in 2 hrs at a rate of 200 bits per second. First, you have to convert hrs to sec by multiplying with 2 by 3,600, which is 7200. So, A = 7200-sec x 200 bits per second. A = 144,0000 bits per second. To convert to bytes, divide by 8. (144,0,000 ÷ 8 = 180,000). To convert to Kilobytes(KB), divide by 1,024. (180,000 ÷ 1,024 = 175.79). Therefore, 175.79 Kilobyte of data was transferred in 2 hrs at a rate of 200 bits per second.

How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate Watch The Video:

Conclusion:

Hope you understand the basics of How to Calculate Data Transfer Rate. For better understanding, take a pen or paper and write it down or take a Data transfer rate calculator. If you find any problem you can tell us via comments or give your feedback. If it is helpful for you please give feedback.

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