throughput
also: data rate, transfer rate, goodput
The amount of data successfully transmitted or processed per unit of time, typically measured in bits per second (bps) or bytes per second (B/s). It represents the actual useful work accomplished by a system or network connection.
Throughput is the rate at which data moves through a system, network, or I/O channel in a real-world scenario. Unlike bandwidth—which is the theoretical maximum capacity—throughput is what you actually achieve, accounting for overhead, latency, packet loss, and system constraints.
For example, a network link rated at 1 Gbps (bandwidth) might only deliver 900 Mbps of usable data transfer (throughput) due to protocol overhead and network conditions. Similarly, a disk drive's throughput depends on factors like seek time and controller efficiency.
Common throughput measurements include: network throughput in Mbps/Gbps, disk I/O in MB/s, and application throughput in requests per second. You can measure it with tools like iperf for network testing, dd for disk performance, or custom monitoring scripts.