Theoretical transfer time — real throughput is typically 60–90% of link rate after overhead.
Time by size and link speed
| Link | 1 MB | 100 MB | 1 GB | 10 GB | 100 GB | 1 TB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ADSL 10 Mbps | 800 ms | 1 min 20 s | 13 min 39 s | 2 h 16 m | 22 h 45 m | 9.7 d |
| Cable 100 Mbps | 80 ms | 8 s | 1 min 21 s | 13 min 39 s | 2 h 16 m | 23 h 18 m |
| Gigabit LAN | 8 ms | 800 ms | 8.2 s | 1 min 21 s | 13 min 39 s | 2 h 19 m |
| 2.5 GbE | 3 ms | 320 ms | 3.3 s | 32.8 s | 5 min 27 s | 55 min 55 s |
| 10 GbE | 1 ms | 80 ms | 819 ms | 8.2 s | 1 min 21 s | 13 min 58 s |
| USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) | 2 ms | 200 ms | 2 s | 20.5 s | 3 min 24 s | 34 min 57 s |
| NVMe Gen 3 | 0 ms | 29 ms | 293 ms | 2.9 s | 29.3 s | 4 min 59 s |
| NVMe Gen 4 | 0 ms | 14 ms | 146 ms | 1.5 s | 14.6 s | 2 min 29 s |
| 4G LTE (50 Mbps) | 160 ms | 16 s | 2 min 43 s | 27 min 18 s | 4 h 33 m | 1.9 d |
| 5G (400 Mbps) | 20 ms | 2 s | 20.5 s | 3 min 24 s | 34 min 8 s | 5 h 49 m |
Notes
- Mbps (megabits per second) ÷ 8 = MB/s (megabytes per second).
- Real-world WAN transfers also limited by TCP congestion control, packet loss, and protocol overhead.
- For latency-sensitive small transfers, RTT dominates — not bandwidth.
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