Maximum Transmission Unit


Maximum Transmission Unit

(networking)(MTU) The largest number of bytes of "payload"data a frame can carry, not counting the frame's headerand trailer.

A frame is a single unit of transportation on the data link layer. It consists of header data plus data which was passeddown from the network layer (e.g. an IP datagram) plussometimes trailer data.

An Ethernet (V2) frame has a MTU of 1500 bytes but the size ofthe frame can be up to 1526 bytes (22 byte header, 4 byte CRCtrailer).

See also fragmentation.