In computer technology , transfer
and its more common derivatives
gigatransfer (GT ) and megatransfer
( MT) refer to a number of data
transfers ( or operations ) . It is also
known as data samples captured per
second , and each sample normally
occurs at the clock edge. They are
most commonly used for measuring
transfer rates (usually as transfers
per second , GT /s , MT / s, etc. ). 1 GT/ s
means 10 9 or one (US/ short scale )
billion transfers per second , while
1 MT / s is 106 or one million transfers
per second . In order to calculate the
data transmission rate, one has to
multiply the transfer rate by the
information channel width. For
example if we have a data bus of 8
bytes with transfer rate of 1 GT /s
then the data rate would be
8 x 109 bytes /s , or approximately
7 .45 GiB /s .
Expanding the width of a transfer
path between , say , a cpu and a
northbridge , allows for an increase in
bandwidth without an actual increase
in operating frequency between
these two points, separated by as
much as several cm . (Same concept
as ping vs. download bandwidth ,
where the ping is the inverse of
frequency .) The physical limit is the
speed at which you can change the
electric field down a
wire [citation needed] .
The units usually refer to the
" effective" number of transfers , or
transfers perceived from "outside" of
a system or component, as opposed
to the internal speed or rate of the
clock of the system . One example is
a computer bus running at double
data rate where data is transferred
on both the rising and falling edge of
the clock signal . If its internal clock
runs at 100 MHz, then the effective
rate is 200 MT /s , because there are
100 million rising edges per second
and 100 million falling edges per
second of a clock signal running at
100 MHz.
SCSI (Small Computer Systems
Interface ) falls in the megatransfer
range of data transfer rate, while
newer bus architectures like the front
side bus, Quick Path Interconnect ,
PCI Express and HyperTransport
operate at the rate of a few GT /s