MB and Mb

Thanks J0hn83 and MHC, I wasn't aware of those conventions

There is also another confusing issue. A megabyte on a a storage medium is more bits than a megabyte of transmitted data!

In normal usage these days, (there are historical non-intel/Msdos/Windows/Apple byte and word sizes), file storage bit multiples are stated in powers of 2. So bit-counts of 4; 8(=Byte); 16; 32; 64; 128; 256; 512; 1024(=kByte); 2048; 4096; 8192 and so on up to 1024kB = 1MB. But data transmission speeds are measured in powers of 10. 10b(its)ps; 100bps; 1,000bps=1kbps, and upwards to 1000,000kbps - 1Mbps.

To add to the mess, the use of "k" seems to be applied in both structures, but "M" in both. The reason for the latter being that "m" generally means milli (one thousandth), rather than Mega (one million).

To try to make things easier, the kibibit was introduced. Have fun with that one! Though I found it useful as a setting in the tbb BQM when I wanted to see what is said when downloading files. (I've just noticed in that link that it says a kibibit and its multiples have "Ki" not "k").