Tuesday, September 11, 2012 at 9:15AM

This is an intuitive look at large data sizes By Julian Bunn in Globally Interconnected Object Databases.

Bytes(8 bits)

Kilobyte (1000 bytes)

Megabyte (1 000 000 bytes)

Gigabyte (1 000 000 000 bytes)

Terabyte (1 000 000 000 000 bytes)

1 Terabyte: An automated tape robot OR All the X-ray films in a large technological hospital OR 50000 trees made into paper and printed OR Daily rate of EOS data (1998)

2 Terabytes: An academic research library OR A cabinet full of Exabyte tapes

10 Terabytes: The printed collection of the US Library of Congress

50 Terabytes: The contents of a large Mass Storage System

Petabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

1 Petabyte: 5 years of EOS data (at 46 mbps)

2 Petabytes: All US academic research libraries

20 Petabytes: Production of hard-disk drives in 1995

200 Petabytes: All printed material ORProduction of digital magnetic tape in 1995

Exabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

5 Exabytes: All words ever spoken by human beings.

From wikipedia: The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007. This is equivalent to less than one 730-MB CD-ROM per person in 1986 (539 MB per person), roughly 4 CD-ROM per person of 1993, 12 CD-ROM per person in the year 2000, and almost 61 CD-ROM per person in 2007. Piling up the imagined 404 billion CD-ROM from 2007 would create a stack from the earth to the moon and a quarter of this distance beyond (with 1.2 mm thickness per CD). The world’s technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was 432 exabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 715 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1993, 1,200 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000, and 1,900 in 2007. According to the CSIRO, in the next decade, astronomers expect to be processing 10 petabytes of data every hour from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope.[11] The array is thus expected to generate approximately one exabyte every four days of operation. According to IBM, the new SKA telescope initiative will generate over an exabyte of data every day. IBM is designing hardware to process this information.



Zettabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

Yottabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

Xenottabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

Shilentnobyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

Domegemegrottebyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

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