Since a Byte is defined as 8 bits of information, there are exactly 8 Bits in a Byte. This definition is put forth in the International System of Units and is widely accepted. The term "byte" to describe 8 bits was first coined by Bucholz in a 1956 paper [3]. In the early days of computing the idea of a 10-bit byte was entertained, but has not gained any traction due to the binary nature of computer system, making power of 2 units more suitable (8 = 23).
Converting between bytes and bits is thus simple and straightforward, especially using our converter.
Difference between Bytes and Bits
Both bits and bytes are used to measure data: be it storage or bandwidth. Both units represent very small quantities of data so both are used primarily by developers, database architects, etc. and most people don't really deal with data in such small quantities as even the smallest mp3 or text documents usually measure in the many KiloBytes and MegaBytes.
The difference is that a bit is the smallest amount of data you can represent in a binary computer system: its value can be either one or zero. On the other hand, a byte, containing 8 bits, can represent 28 = 256 different types of data. This is the basis for the ASCII character set in which each letter, number, and special symbol can be expressed by a unique combination of the bits in a single byte. E.g. the letter "a" corresponds to 01100001 in the ASCII table.
How to convert Bytes to Bits
To convert from bytes to bits you only need to multiply by 8. So 10 bytes equals 10 x 8 = 80 bits. More example calculations and a conversion table are below.
Bytes to bits conversion example
Sample task: convert 8 bytes to bits. Solution:
Formula:
Bytes * 8 = bits
Calculation:
8 Bytes * 8 = 64 bits
End result:
8 Bytes is equal to 64 bits