Interesting you ask...... I've had a similar conversation and my thoughts were always the same... (that each power of 10 was equated to 2^10 more than the previous), but it seems to vary alot. I've found that with memory (RAM), they stick to the hard core "binary metric" system where 1K always = 1024, 1M = 1024 * 1024 and 1 Gig = 1024 * 1024 * 1024. But with network bandwidth it seems that 1K = 1000, 1M = 1,000,000 and 1G = 1,000,000,000 (good old metric, not "binary metric"). Hard drives (strangely enough) usually use 1024 for K, but then 1M = 1024 * 1000 and Gig = 1024 * 1000 * 1000...... (then again I've seen some hard drives that specifically say 1Megabyte = 1,000,000, etc......)
It's a strange thing that happens....... we just have to live with it =) Mike W. wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > This is not specifically related to Cisco, but is a networking question. > > I was having a mild argument yesterday with a PC/server type guy who was > very irate at an ISP for using "gigabyte" to mean "1000 Megabytes" instead > of "1024 Megabytes". He appeared to think that throughout the IT > industry, "K" always means 2 ^ 10, "M" always means 2 ^ 20, etc etc. I > pointed out that this is not always the case (64kbps = 64000 bps, for > example), and haven't yet had a reply (I actually agree with him that the > ISP is using the wrong definition, but I can see why they are). > > However, it got me curious. After a quick squizz through various sources, > I couldn't find any that define the prefixes for networking usage. > > www.whatis.com has an interesting page on the prefixes, which basically > backs up what I thought - roughly, storage (memory sizes etc) usually uses > prefixes calculated in powers of two, while data transfer usually uses > prefixes calculated in powers of ten. > > But is this codified anywhere? For example, do the ethernet standards > define "10 Mbps", or "1 Gbps" (Yes, I know about the IEEE site, but the > standards don't seem to be currently downloadable)? > > JMcL Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=46953&t=46940 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
