How much IS 10GB?

[Huw Dawson]

And lo, Huw came once again into the world of AGS to ask another pointless techno question.

Hey all.

I am finally getting broadband! Unless you've been stuck on a slow net connection for as long as I have, you have no idea how pleased I am, sitting in the computer room at my local college, saying that short phrase. The thing is, and to be honest it's not as bad as it sounds, the parents are going for the easy option - a simple upgrade from AOL to AOL. Seeing as AOL UK is now owned by the nice folks at The Carphone Warehouse I am personally not beating my head against the wall at the prospect of having to use an ISP of such poor quality.

The thing with AOL UK now is that they offer 8MB broadband, but with a 10GB limit each month. I play various online games on my narrowband connection, but an upgrade offers access to better games on the internet, the kind you are all familiar with. Will 10GB a month really supply me with enough bandwith to play these games? (Or have I just grasped the wrong end of the stick with this issue and will still be able to play these games even with the bandwidth limit exceeded?)

For the record, I only ask these questions here because I trust you people with computing knowledge.

- Huw

EDIT: ECK! My avatar appears to be broken. I needed a new one anyway. :p This temporary one will do for a while.

[voh]

It depends. Some ISPs downgrade your account to 56k speed when you exceed your bandwidth, others charge extra for every GB you go over it. And it depends on how much data the games are using.

I'd suggest running a network monitor program such as this one (it's free, relax) and looking at how bandwidth you actually use during a game session. That'll give you a better idea of the bandwidth you'd be needing.

That's all I can think of now

edit: changed URL to SourceForge project page

[Buckethead]

mmmm 10GB doesn't sound all that much. I don't know what playings games online will take from that. But I personally would try to find a provider that gives unlimited. You don't have to worry about it then. I'm not sure if there are many providers in the UK who give this but in The Netherlands there are lots.

[Radiant]

It depends on how many hours per day you expect to be playing these games.

[sharksweetheart]

.

[SSH]

also depends on whether their "B" in "GB" stands for bits or bytes... and if the G stands for 1024*1024*1024 or 1000*1000*1000...

If you go with CarphoneWarhouse broadband directly, you get a 40G limit... whatever that means.

[Buckethead]

If you go with CarphoneWarhouse broadband directly, you get a 40G limit... whatever that means.

40 giants obviously

[voh]

also depends on whether their "B" in "GB" stands for bits or bytes... and if the G stands for 1024*1024*1024 or 1000*1000*1000...

ISPs nearly always state their upload/download speeds in bits, and the bandwidth limits in bytes. This is, as far as I know, a given. 10Gb (bits) would be unworkable. That's either 1.25 (GB = G = 1000*1000*1000) or 1.34 (GiB = Gi = 1024*1024*1024), and how would ANYONE expect someone to NOT exceed that with a broadband connection? No, it's in bytes.

Also, you can assume that the limit is in GiB (though still erroneously called GB, which is the 1000 version officially, but is also used for the 1024 computer-jargon), so it's 10 * 1024*1024*1024 = 10.7 GB, or simply 10 GiB.

Don't you just love the difference between a gigabyte and a gibibyte?

[LimpingFish]

Confusion!

I have a 2mb line with a 20gb download limit per month. I rarely come close to exceeding it.

Since an 8mb line could transfer information faster, in theory you might find you could easily exceed that 10gb limit, depending on what you download.

With a 2mb line, I get an average of 210kbs when I download files, so I avoid downloading anything larger than 1gb, because I simply have no patience.

With an 8mb line I'd get faster speeds, though, and that might tempt me to download larger files, thus eating up my download limit in a shorter space of time.

I don't think online games use that much, though.

[RickJ]

Here is yet another way of looking at it. 

First of there is  the question of whether your download speed is in MB (mega-bytes) or Mb (mega-bits).   Usually connection speeds are given in Mb/sec so we will assume this is the case for now.  That means that you will be able to download  one MB of data every second.

           Convert mega-bits to mega-bytes
           (8 Mb/sec) / (8 (Mb/MB)) = 1 MB/sec 

Now you say you have a 10 GB download limit.  We will assume this limit is in bytes as you indicate and as is normally the case.   So as I understand it, that means you will be able to download 10240 MB of data every month.

           Convert 10 giga-bytes to mega-bytes
           10 GB * 1024 MB/GB = 10240 MB

Now the question I would be asking myself is how long could I use my internet account before I reached the limit? 

           Convert 10 giga-byte limit to seconds and minutes of usage
           10240 MB = 1 MB/sec * S sec
           S = 10240 MB / 1 MB/sec = 10240 sec
           M = 10240 sec / (60 sec/min) = 170.7 min
           H = 10240 sec / (3600 sec/hr) = 2.84

So is three hours a month, operating at full bore, enough for you?  Perhaps initially it would be.   But you will quickly discover other things you can do with high speed internet that are now unthinkable and I will predict that in a very short time you will have out grown your limit.   

Hope I haven't made any bone head math errors.    Well even if I have, I guess you still can see my point.

Cheers

   

   

[voh]

           Convert 10 giga-bytes to mega-bytes
           10 GB * 1024 MB/GB = 10240 MB

10 GB * 1048.57 = 10485.7 ~= 10486 MB

But otherwise your math seems solid

[m0ds]

This reminds me of 500gb hard drives which actually only have a capacity of 450.

[LimpingFish]

This reminds me of 500gb hard drives which actually only have a capacity of 450.

Yes, I hate that. My 160GB HD only has a capacity of 149GB. My 1GB PSP Memory Card only holds 940MB, and my PC's original 40GB HD only holds 37GB!

The PC industry is built on a web of lies!

[Huw Dawson]

I think I need a lie down. This is worse than that time I got into an discussion with a physisist about quantum mechanics...

 

- Huw

[dasjoe]

My 160GB HD only has a capacity of 149GB. My 1GB PSP Memory Card only holds 940MB, and my PC's original 40GB HD only holds 37GB!

The PC industry is built on a web of lies!

WRONG!
160 GB = 160 000 000 000 Bytes, which equals 149 Gibibytes.
GB = 10^9, whereas GiB = 2^30.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibytes.

[SSH]

In other news, my TalkTalk broadband is hosed at home jsut now, so there's no way I'm going to break MY limit :'(

[LimpingFish]

WRONG!
160 GB = 160 000 000 000 Bytes, which equals 149 Gibibytes.
GB = 10^9, whereas GiB = 2^30.

But the box doesn't say 160 Gibibyte, and up until now I didn't even know what a gibibyte was!

Wiki:

"Some consumers feel short-changed when they discover the difference, and claim that manufacturers of drives and data transfer devices are using the decimal measurements in an intentionally misleading way to inflate their numbers. Several legal disputes have been waged over the confusion."

Lies!

[voh]

Lies? It's entirely true!

Unless by "Lies!" you really meant "I agree completely, and thusforth shall only claim as such."

It's a surprisingly easy thing to mix up

[LimpingFish]

160GB sounds better than 147GiB. It's not an out and out lie, but it's a fudging of the facts.

I consider myself at least slighty savvy when it comes to buying PC accessories and such, and yet I didn't know what a gibibyte was. Why don't I know? Why isn't it on the box?

Because 160GB sounds better than 147GiB.

What I meant with "Lies!" was that I stand by my earlier post.

[voh]

Your explanation has been accepted.

And GB does sound better than GiB. It's strange that you only really find the GB/GiB discrepancy in harddrives. Everything else seems pretty much honest. 512 megs of RAM, 1024.. Gb is 8 times more than GB, and GB in networking is a GiB. It's confusing when it comes to HDs