| Zebibits per second (Zibit/s) | Zebioctets per second (Zio/s) |
|---|---|
| 1 Zebibit per second | 0.125 Zio/s |
| 2 Zebibits per second | 0.25 Zio/s |
| 3 Zebibits per second | 0.375 Zio/s |
| 4 Zebibits per second | 0.5 Zio/s |
| 5 Zebibits per second | 0.625 Zio/s |
| 10 Zebibits per second | 1.25 Zio/s |
| 20 Zebibits per second | 2.5 Zio/s |
| 25 Zebibits per second | 3.125 Zio/s |
| 50 Zebibits per second | 6.25 Zio/s |
| 100 Zebibits per second | 12.5 Zio/s |
| Reference | Zebibits per second (Zibit/s) | Zebioctets per second (Zio/s) |
|---|---|---|
| A dial-up modem | 4.74338 × 10-17 Zibit/s | 5.92923 × 10-18 Zio/s |
| Typical home broadband | 8.47033 × 10-14 Zibit/s | 1.05879 × 10-14 Zio/s |
| Gigabit Ethernet | 8.47033 × 10-13 Zibit/s | 1.05879 × 10-13 Zio/s |
| Streaming a 4K film | 2.11758 × 10-14 Zibit/s | 2.64698 × 10-15 Zio/s |
The zebibit per second is a unit of data transfer rate equal to two to the seventieth power bits per second, which is 1,024 exbibits per second. Its symbol is Zibit/s. It is the binary counterpart of the zettabit per second, and the two differ by 18.1 per cent — approaching a fifth.
Nothing runs at this rate, and nothing is designed to. A zebibit per second is about a thousand times the total instantaneous traffic of the internet, and it would move the world's entire stock of stored data in a matter of minutes. The unit exists because the IEC series, like the metric series it parallels, was defined completely rather than only as far as anyone then needed.
That completeness is a deliberate design principle rather than an oversight. A measurement system whose names run out at some arbitrary point forces every future user to improvise an extension, and improvised extensions conflict with one another. Defining the whole ladder in advance costs nothing and removes the possibility.
The eighteen per cent gap at this level is the clearest illustration of why the binary series was needed at all. At the kibibit the two conventions differed by 2.4 per cent, which nobody noticed; the discrepancy multiplies by 1.024 at each step, and by here it is large enough that no reader could treat the two labels as interchangeable even in casual writing.
In octets a zebibit per second is 147,573,952,589,676,412,928, or 128 exbioctets per second. Expressing the same rate in every unit on the scale is an exercise rather than an application, but it is one a converter has to perform correctly, because the arithmetic does not become approximate when the quantity becomes unreachable.
The practical lesson is the one the whole binary series teaches: the lowercase i is not optional. It is the only mark in a written figure that distinguishes a power of two from a power of ten, and by this point in the scale the two are nearly a fifth apart.
One zebibit per second equals 1,024 exbibits per second, 147,573,952,589,676,412,928 octets per second, or about 1.181 zettabits 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.