| Exbioctets per second (Eio/s) | Zebioctets per second (Zio/s) |
|---|---|
| 1 Exbioctet per second | 0.0009765625 Zio/s |
| 2 Exbioctets per second | 0.001953125 Zio/s |
| 3 Exbioctets per second | 0.0029296875 Zio/s |
| 4 Exbioctets per second | 0.00390625 Zio/s |
| 5 Exbioctets per second | 0.0048828125 Zio/s |
| 10 Exbioctets per second | 0.009765625 Zio/s |
| 20 Exbioctets per second | 0.01953125 Zio/s |
| 25 Exbioctets per second | 0.0244140625 Zio/s |
| 50 Exbioctets per second | 0.048828125 Zio/s |
| 100 Exbioctets per second | 0.09765625 Zio/s |
| Reference | Exbioctets per second (Eio/s) | Zebioctets per second (Zio/s) |
|---|---|---|
| A dial-up modem | 6.07153 × 10-15 Eio/s | 5.92923 × 10-18 Zio/s |
| Typical home broadband | 1.0842 × 10-11 Eio/s | 1.05879 × 10-14 Zio/s |
| Gigabit Ethernet | 1.0842 × 10-10 Eio/s | 1.05879 × 10-13 Zio/s |
| Streaming a 4K film | 2.71051 × 10-12 Eio/s | 2.64698 × 10-15 Zio/s |
The exbioctet per second is a unit of data transfer rate equal to 1,024 pebioctets per second, or two to the sixtieth power octets per second. Its symbol is Eio/s. It is the binary counterpart of the exaoctet per second, and the two differ by 15.3 per cent.
No machine, network or aggregate reaches this rate. An exbioctet per second is more than eight times the total instantaneous traffic of the entire internet, and it would move the world's whole stock of stored data in a matter of minutes. The unit describes a capacity with no source that could supply it and no destination that could take it in.
Two to the sixtieth is nevertheless a familiar number in computing, because it is the size of the address space a 64-bit machine can reach in octets divided by sixteen. The same power of two turns up in filesystem limits, in memory maps and in the design of every system built on that architecture, so the quantity is well known even though no rate approaches it.
The unit exists because the IEC series was defined completely. Every binary prefix pairs with every unit, exactly as every metric prefix does, so that a reader who has never seen Eio/s can decode it from the prefix alone. A system with gaps would need a table of permitted combinations, which is precisely what a rule-based system exists to avoid.
The difference from the decimal unit is worth restating at each level because it compounds. At the kibioctet it was 2.4 per cent, here it is more than an eighth, and at the yobioctet it will be more than a fifth. That growth is the reason the binary prefixes were created, and it is why the lowercase i has to be written even in figures nobody will check.
For a converter, the treatment is mechanical: six multiplications by 1,024 from octets, or the equivalent divisions coming down. The value of doing it correctly is not that anyone will use the result, but that a tool which handles every case the same way can be trusted on the cases that matter.
One exbioctet per second equals 1,024 pebioctets per second, 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 octets per second, or about 1.153 exaoctets per second.
The zebioctet per second is a unit of data transfer rate equal to 1,024 exbioctets per second, or two to the seventieth power octets per second. Its symbol is Zio/s. It is the binary counterpart of the zettaoctet per second, and the two differ by 18.1 per cent.
A link running at this rate would transfer everything humanity has ever stored several times over in a single second. That is the plainest way to describe how far it lies beyond anything that exists, is planned, or has been seriously proposed. The unit is a name for a quantity, not a description of a thing.
It is worth being precise about why such names are still defined. A measurement system is a set of rules, and the value of a rule is that it applies without exception. The moment a system says that certain prefix-and-unit combinations are legal and others are not, every user must carry a table instead of a rule, and different users will carry different tables. Complete definition is cheaper and safer.
The physical obstacles are not merely large but qualitative. At a zebioctet per second, the energy needed to switch the required number of states, even at the thermodynamic minimum, becomes a substantial power; the practical figure for real electronics is many orders of magnitude above that; and the number of parallel channels required exceeds anything that could be built and cooled. These are not engineering targets.
The 18.1 per cent gap from the decimal unit continues the pattern that runs through the whole binary series. Each step multiplies the discrepancy by 1.024, so a convention that was harmless at the kibioctet has become, by this point, a difference no reader could overlook. Making that visible is the purpose the IEC prefixes serve.
In practice, a converter meets this unit only in a complete table or in a document exploring theoretical limits. Handling it correctly costs nothing and demonstrates that the tool applies its rules uniformly, which is the property that makes its ordinary answers trustworthy.
One zebioctet per second equals 1,024 exbioctets per second, 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 octets per second, or about 1.181 zettaoctets per second.