| Yottabits per second (Ybit/s) | Yobibits per second (Yibit/s) |
|---|---|
| 1 Yottabit per second | 0.827180612553 Yibit/s |
| 2 Yottabits per second | 1.65436122511 Yibit/s |
| 3 Yottabits per second | 2.48154183766 Yibit/s |
| 4 Yottabits per second | 3.30872245021 Yibit/s |
| 5 Yottabits per second | 4.13590306277 Yibit/s |
| 10 Yottabits per second | 8.27180612553 Yibit/s |
| 20 Yottabits per second | 16.5436122511 Yibit/s |
| 25 Yottabits per second | 20.6795153138 Yibit/s |
| 50 Yottabits per second | 41.3590306277 Yibit/s |
| 100 Yottabits per second | 82.7180612553 Yibit/s |
| Reference | Yottabits per second (Ybit/s) | Yobibits per second (Yibit/s) |
|---|---|---|
| A dial-up modem | 5.6 × 10-20 Ybit/s | 4.63221 × 10-20 Yibit/s |
| Typical home broadband | 1 × 10-16 Ybit/s | 8.27181 × 10-17 Yibit/s |
| Gigabit Ethernet | 1 × 10-15 Ybit/s | 8.27181 × 10-16 Yibit/s |
| Streaming a 4K film | 2.5 × 10-17 Ybit/s | 2.06795 × 10-17 Yibit/s |
The yottabit per second is a unit of data transfer rate equal to a thousand zettabits per second. Its symbol is Ybit/s. For thirty years it was the largest rate the metric system could name, and it describes a speed that has no application anywhere: not in engineering, not in research, and not in any forecast that anyone takes seriously.
Its distance from reality is easy to state. Global internet traffic averages roughly one exabit per second, so a yottabit per second is about a million times the combined communication of the entire human species. The largest single link ever built runs at a few hundred terabits per second, which is a ten-billionth of this figure.
The unit is nonetheless properly defined, and that completeness is the point. The metric system's rule is that every prefix combines with every unit without exception, so a reader who has never seen Ybit/s can decode it from the prefix alone. A system with gaps would need a table of which combinations are legal, and a table is exactly what a rule-based system exists to avoid.
There is a physical way to think about the number. A yottabit per second is 125 zettaoctets per second, and the total quantity of data humanity has ever stored is a few hundred zettaoctets. A link at this rate would therefore transmit the entire accumulated information of the species in a couple of seconds. No such body of data exists in one place to be sent, and nothing at the far end could receive it.
The prefix yotta was adopted in 1991 alongside zetta, at a conference that also had to consider which letters remained free. It stood at the top of the metric ladder until 2022, when ronna and quetta were added above it, partly because data quantities were beginning to approach the old ceiling. Rates have not followed quantities upward at the same pace.
For a converter, handling the unit is a matter of consistency rather than utility. A tool that converts every metric prefix correctly does not need to decide which of them anyone will use, and a figure written in yottabits per second — however unlikely — converts by the same rule as any other.
One yottabit per second equals 1,000 zettabits per second, 125 zettaoctets per second, or about 0.8272 yobibits per second.
The yobibit per second is a unit of data transfer rate equal to two to the eightieth power bits per second, which is 1,024 zebibits per second. Its symbol is Yibit/s. It is the largest binary transfer rate the International Electrotechnical Commission has named, and the binary counterpart of the yottabit per second.
At this final step the binary and decimal conventions differ by 20.9 per cent, and that number is the conclusion of the argument the IEC prefixes were created to settle. A naming habit that was 2.4 per cent wrong at the kibibit has grown, through eight successive multiplications by 1.024, into a discrepancy of more than a fifth. No measurement system can carry an ambiguity that large.
The unit describes nothing. Global internet traffic runs at roughly an exabit per second, so a yobibit per second is over a million times the total communication of the human species. No link, no aggregate and no forecast reaches it, and none is expected to.
The binary series stops here because the decimal series stopped at yotta when the IEC standard was written in 1998. When ronna and quetta were added to the metric system in 2022, no matching binary names were defined, so a rate of two to the ninetieth bits per second has no accepted short form. That gap will presumably be filled if it is ever needed, which at present it is not.
Defining a rung of a ladder nobody has climbed still has a purpose. A system whose names run out forces its users to improvise, and improvised extensions conflict; writing the whole series out in advance means the rule, rather than a table of exceptions, is all anyone has to learn. That is the same reasoning that gave the metric system its complete prefix set.
For any reader of technical material the lesson of the whole binary series is a single character. Kibit/s, Mibit/s, Gibit/s, Tibit/s, Pibit/s, Eibit/s, Zibit/s and Yibit/s are binary; kbit/s, Mbit/s, Gbit/s, Tbit/s, Pbit/s, Ebit/s, Zbit/s and Ybit/s are decimal; and the difference between them widens from a rounding error to a fifth as you climb.
One yobibit per second equals 1,024 zebibits per second, 151,115,727,451,828,646,838,272 octets per second, or about 1.209 yottabits per second.