Plan a storage transfer
Convert a data size and an effective transfer rate into a time budget. Keep bits, bytes and binary units separate.
Use a rate observed in a similar copy
100 GB at a constant 100 MB/s takes 1,000 seconds: 16 minutes 40 seconds. A 10% extra-time allowance makes that 18 minutes 20 seconds. A drive’s advertised peak speed is not a promise for your file copy.
Formula and units
Base time in seconds = data bytes ÷ effective bytes per second. Planned time = base time × (1 + extra allowance ÷ 100).
| Unit | Bytes or bytes per second |
|---|---|
| GB / TB | 1,000,000,000 / 1,000,000,000,000 bytes |
| GiB / TiB | 1,073,741,824 / 1,099,511,627,776 bytes |
| MB/s / MiB/s | 1,000,000 / 1,048,576 bytes per second |
| Mb/s | 1,000,000 bits per second ÷ 8 |
What the result leaves unresolved
The input is an effective rate, not an interface ceiling or a predicted SSD benchmark. Different file sizes, cached writes, shared source/destination resources, encryption, network conditions and retries can change the actual duration. The extra allowance is your planning choice, not a statistically validated uncertainty range.
Copying and deleting are different actions. Keep a backup and verify the destination before removing the original files. This calculator makes no changes to your storage.
Plan total storage capacity · Calculate recording storage · Investigate a missing drive
Sources and calculation basis
Source pages inspected October 13, 2026. Calculations use your inputs, not a benchmark dataset or a live system measurement.