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Transfer Time Calculator

Work out how long moving a given volume of data takes over a given link, with realistic protocol overhead and sustained-throughput derating. Compares link speeds side by side so you can see what upgrading actually buys you.

Protocol overhead plus the gap between line rate and sustained speed.

6h 20mTransfer window22,857 seconds
87.5 MB/sEffective throughput700 Mbps of 1,000 Mbps line rate
2.00 TBPayload1.82 TiB
70%Derate applied
6.3 hHours
0.26 dDays
Same payloadAcross link speeds
Transfer time for the same data volume across common link speeds at the selected derate
LinkEffectiveWindow
100 Mbps8.8 MB/s2d 15h
1 Gbps87.5 MB/s6h 20m
2.5 Gbps218.8 MB/s2h 32m
10 Gbps875 MB/s38m 6s
25 Gbps2187.5 MB/s15m 14s
40 Gbps3500 MB/s9m 31s
100 Gbps8750 MB/s3m 49s

Click a row to set that link speed above.

Method & assumptions
  • Link speeds are decimal bits: 1 Gbps = 109 bits/s. Data volumes in GB/TB are decimal bytes; TiB is binary. Mixing the two is the usual source of a wrong answer.
  • The derate covers TCP/IP and protocol overhead plus the gap between line rate and sustained throughput. 70% is fair for large files on a healthy LAN.
  • Many small files are dominated by per-file round trips, not bandwidth — 30% or lower is realistic, and no link upgrade fixes it.
  • The figure assumes the bottleneck is the link. If source disks, target disks, or a single-threaded copy are slower, they set the ceiling instead.
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Anyone planning a data migration, backup seed, or overnight cutover window.

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