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rate unites should be in k not in ki
Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:17 am
by g2c
Hi,
for instance, ethernet speed is 10, 100, 1000Mb/s
sonet is 155 / 622 etc Mb/s
My isp speed is 2.5Mb/s
ki is used for storage because computers use binary logic. Nothing in data transmission technology implies 2^n rates
Re: rate unites should be in k not in ki
Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 8:26 pm
by Nemo
Not needed. Current values are already good enough.
Re: rate unites should be in k not in ki
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 2:17 am
by loki
It's actually more accurate labeling, when speaking of actual data to be called in KiB, MiB, GiB, etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibibyte
Re: rate unites should be in k not in ki
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:18 pm
by g2c
It is not a labeling. It is the unit in which the dimension (in this case - rate) is measured, just as forces are measured in Newtons and pressure in Pascals. For a rate of, say 10000000b/s, you can use the unit M and write 10Mb/s or you can use the unit Mi and write 9.5367...Mib/s. Using the unit of ki makes sense talking about storage. As for rates, ki has nothing "natural": the rate is fixed by a crystal and this can be adjusted "naturally" to whatever value you (well the standard) decide, no one rate that i am aware about is expressed more simply in ki than in k. ...
The invention of ki, was to have a unit equally valid for not IT pros than for pros. A pro reading a "2KB" chip knows very well that it is NOT 2000 bytes chip but 2048 bytes chip whereas an non IT pro might mistakenly take it to be exactly 2000 bytes.