It’s still super fast, but a 60gb download should be in the ball park of 1min but it frequently would take 10-15min
Edit: I have symmetrical 1GB fiber connection with a router specced for WiFi 7. I did mess up the abbreviation for megabytes, my bad y’all.
Edit 2: I may have messed it up again. IM 5 YALL
Edit 3: bit vs byte 🥵🌶️
In: Technology
File sizes are normally expressed as giga*byte* and network speeds are expressed as giga*bit*. A bit is a singular 1 or 0, a byte is 8 of those. Therefore, if your internet speed is 1 Gb/s and you are needing to transmit a 60GB file then the fastest it can possibly go is 8 minutes and 18 seconds. 1/8th of this is about what you were expecting, so your error is in the notation.
You are confusing Gigabits and Gigabytes.
60 GB is 60 Gigabytes.
There are 8 bits in a byte. 1000 mb/s translates to 125 MB/s.
60 GB divided by 125 MB/s comes out to 480 seconds, as it takes 8 seconds to download 1 GB.
480 seconds is 8 minutes.
1. You are confusing big B with little b.
B as in 60GB stands for byte, b in 1000mbps stands for bit. There are 8 bits to the byte so your peak download time would still be 8 minutes.
2. The server sending you your data may not be sending it as fast as you can download it.
3. There are IO (input/output) inefficiencies on your computers end. The the network card or mobo needs to be able to receive that much data , the processor then needs to process it and decide where it goes, the your disk needs to write it.
1000 MBit is 125 MByte (since 1 Byte = 8 Bit). For some reason the internet traffic is measured in Bit while file size is measured in bytes.
Your download speed is like a highway with a speed limit. Most of the cars on that highway can’t drive as fast as the speed limit..
First 1Gbp/a = 125 MB/s.
Second, even though your speed is that fast, most servers will not deliver files to you that fast.
You might have a car that can go 200 mph but the road you’re traveling on has a limit of 45
1) A connection rated for a thousand megabits means it can transmit up to a thousand megabits. Oftentimes you don’t get that speed due to congestion at your ISP. False advertising? Sure but they don’t actually guarantee it.
2) the server you’re trying to copy data from also has limited bandwidth, and it has to go through multiple routers to connect to which also have limited bandwidth. Congestion at any point or just a smaller pipe to the server means you’re getting less.
3) Whenever you transmit data, you have to use an error correcting protocol. This protocol adds traffic. Messages that go back and forth to confirm that content was sent correctly. When content is sent incorrectly due to noise or interference, packets have to be resent which means, you guessed it, less overall bandwidth.
When they say your connection supports a gigabit, that’s really just a best case scenario. You’re not going to get that.
There’s several reasons for this, and some were already answered.
Your internet provider offers you a certain amount of speed, in this case, it’s measured in bits per second. 1 byte = 8 bits, so 1 gigabit per second = 1/8 gigabytes per second (approximately 125 megabytes per second).
Second, If we already consider this, and your maximum possible speed is 125MB/sec, this would be the maximum attainable speed, not the minimum. There are many factors which can determine the speed of data transfer, such as the speed the source of the data is (e.g. a server hosting a file that you are download). Also, matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Even backbone-grade fiber connections only have a theoretical maximum of about 2/3 the speed of light.
If we consider this as well, there’s also the distance between the source and the destination. Through the Internet, the data doesn’t go straight from the source to you (in 99.99999999% of cases), but it travels through many hubs and switches navigating its way to you. Each of these points could potentially result in a slowdown.
Also there’s your home internet connection itself. If you’re on Ethernet, odds are you should be able to pull the limit of bandwidth provided your router supports it (e.g. gigabit ports), and your computer can write data that fast (SSD vs mechanical platter-based hard drive). If you’re on wi-fi, it depends on your current link speed (Which can vary based on signal strength and other nearby networks on same/similar channels).
Another factor is other devices on you network and other process on you PC. Priority is complex, so many processes may compete for download speed.
If you are on wifi, you are also probably limited to 600 Mbps (unless both the router and device has wifi 6E or higher), so ~75 MB/s. Ethernet interface and cables are also rated for a max speed (today, usually 1 gbps or 10, so either 125 MB/s or 1250)
If you want to test the real maximum speed, download a large game on steam to a m.2 ssd.
Steam servers are high bandwidth (unless it’s a big game release) and steam the software does not give a shit and will slow down every other download to a crawl as it takes as much bandwidth as it can. (Unless you manually limit it)
On my 1.5 gbps connection with a 10 gbs network, I get around 150 MB/s peak
No matter how wide the pipe is, you can’t get more water than it’s released from the faucet at the other end.
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