This read-only Counter64 reports the number of bytes that were tail-dropped on an interface, the byte-oriented counterpart to the dropped-packets counter. Knowing the byte volume of drops, rather than just packet count, helps an admin gauge how much actual data throughput was lost to congestion, which matters more for large-payload applications. For example, a high dropped-bytes count with a relatively low dropped-packets count would suggest the interface is losing mostly large packets, pointing an admin toward a specific traffic type to investigate.