Tuesday
Sep112012
How big is a Petabyte, Exabyte, Zettabyte, or a Yottabyte?
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)
- 0.1 bytes: A binary decision
- 1 byte: A single character
- 10 bytes: A single word
- 100 bytes: A telegram OR A punched card
Kilobyte (1000 bytes)
- 1 Kilobyte: A very short story
- 2 Kilobytes: A Typewritten page
- 10 Kilobytes: An encyclopaedic page OR A deck of punched cards
- 50 Kilobytes: A compressed document image page
- 100 Kilobytes: A low-resolution photograph
- 200 Kilobytes: A box of punched cards
- 500 Kilobytes: A very heavy box of punched cards
Megabyte (1 000 000 bytes)
- 1 Megabyte: A small novel OR A 3.5 inch floppy disk
- 2 Megabytes: A high resolution photograph
- 5 Megabytes: The complete works of Shakespeare OR 30 seconds of TV-quality video
- 10 Megabytes: A minute of high-fidelity sound OR A digital chest X-ray
- 20 Megabytes: A box of floppy disks
- 50 Megabytes: A digital mammogram
- 100 Megabytes: 1 meter of shelved books OR A two-volume encyclopaedic book
- 200 Megabytes: A reel of 9-track tape OR An IBM 3480 cartridge tape
- 500 Megabytes: A CD-ROM OR The hard disk of a PC
Gigabyte (1 000 000 000 bytes)
- 1 Gigabyte: A pickup truck filled with paper OR A symphony in high-fidelity sound OR A movie at TV quality
- 2 Gigabytes: 20 meters of shelved books OR A stack of 9-track tapes
- 5 Gigabytes: An 8mm Exabyte tape
- 10 Gigabytes:
- 20 Gigabytes: A good collection of the works of Beethoven OR 5 Exabyte tapes OR A VHS tape used for digital data
- 50 Gigabytes: A floor of books OR Hundreds of 9-track tapes
- 100 Gigabytes: A floor of academic journals OR A large ID-1 digital tape
- 200 Gigabytes: 50 Exabyte tapes
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 OR Production 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)
- From wikipedia:
- The world’s technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was 0.432 zettabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 0.715 in 1993, 1.2 in 2000, and 1.9 (optimally compressed) zettabytes in 2007 (this is the informational equivalent to every person on earth receiving 174 newspapers per day).[9][10]
- According to International Data Corporation, the total amount of global data is expected to grow to 2.7 zettabytes during 2012. This is 48% up from 2011.[11]
- Mark Liberman calculated the storage requirements for all human speech ever spoken at 42 zettabytes if digitized as 16 kHz 16-bit audio. This was done in response to a popular expression that states "all words ever spoken by human beings" could be stored in approximately 5 exabytes of data (see exabyte for details). Liberman did "freely confess that maybe the authors [of the exabyte estimate] were thinking about text."[12]
- Research from the University of Southern California reports that in 2007, humankind successfully sent 1.9 zettabytes of information through broadcast technology such as televisions and GPS.[13]
- Research from the University of California, San Diego reports that in 2008, Americans consumed 3.6 zettabytes of information.
- Internet Traffic to Reach 1.3 Zettabytes by 2016
Reader Comments (94)
500 Megabytes: A CD-ROM OR The hard disk of a PC
I take it this list is from 1994.
Here's another measurement for 3 Megabytes = Length of Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.
Leo, it's from 1997. I had more text describing the timing but for some reason it messed up the RSS feed so I just removed all the nonessentials. I also added some more modern stats from wikipedia for some of the larger values.
Fail right out of the blocks. 0.1 bytes is not "a binary decision". 1 bit is a binary decision. 0.1 bytes = 0.8 bits (8 bits in a byte x 0.1 = 0.8 bits).
yeah but ...
most of the information being transmitted today is redundant. ain't no optimal compression going on and almost all of it is just copies of something somewhere else. it all compresses down to something smaller than google trends.
Nobody will speak Domegemegrottebyte. They will create nicknames, like DB (not Database), DmB, D16e, or something related to 1e33 (10^33 bytes).
How can a short novel be one Megabyte and all the works of Shakespeare be only five Megabytes?
great! there are so many zero following 1.
I just curios, what about how small is the number below 0? sorry if OOT
I bet Apple is thinking of fitting half a Domegemegrottebyte into the iPad 20 and a full Domegemegrottebyte in the iPhone 50..
How did you manage to find a webpage from 1997? That alone is an achievement.
It's a funny list though. Especially, the use of "punched cards" as an intuitive measure of data. :)
Not to mention "a very heavy box of punched cards".
Silentobyte = 0 bits
Majorly wrong!
Well the descriptors sounds reasonable, but the numbers are in base 10 and not base 2.
1 byte is 8 bits,
1 kilobyte is 1024 bytes,
1 megabyte is 1024 kilobytes,
1 gigabyte is 1024 megabytes,
1 terabyte is 1024 gigabytes,
etc, etc...
Adam, you're the one who is wrong. 1000 bytes is a kilobyte.
1024 bytes is a "kibibyte", at least since 1998 or so. I can understand the mistake though, if you are old and haven't really been keeping up with the news. A lot of people became programmers in the early 90s and kept the bad prefixes our forefathers invented. Those people in the past didn't really understand how SI units work.
"0.1 bytes: A binary decision"
How the heck are you able to take a tenth of something that only has 8 pieces?
We have already entered the zettabyte age. It's the order of magnitude of the digital information that's created, communicated and consumed globally. See also my recent blog post on http://b2bstorytelling.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/highway-61-revisited/
After seeing the above comments I can quickly see how we are zooming towards a Yottabyte of data, great read and laughed my head off at all of your comments above. PS I am an old mainframer still working in IT since 1974.
its base 2 not 10, ie 1024 not 1000, you know data 1 or 0.
Who the heck makes these names up!!!
You guys are all really cute with your inaccurate comments everyone knows that conforming 10^59 would create an inconerddontgetlaidbyte. Let me know when someone with some valid intelligence comments.
yoda lol
old school is still correct as everything doubles such as
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, etc
I was wrong, the right answer to all the questions is to make space bigger and larger! my idea will work, the decomenditetionbyte will be created!
I believe i'll be working as a programmer when I grow up.
Pity poor Nick for saying "...Fail right out of the blocks. 0.1 bytes is not "a binary decision". 1 bit is a binary decision. 0.1 bytes = 0.8 bits (8 bits in a byte x 0.1 = 0.8 bits)."
He's confusing / mixing Decimal and Binary numbering systems.
I guess the "decimal" point (separator) tricked him in to this hypocritical nonsense: "...0.1 bytes = 0.8 bits."
0.1 is an attempt to express a Binary fraction, not to be read as a Decimal fraction.
Trejkaz's September 26, 2012 comment is instructive...
TBH, it was really ignorant to move to 1000 from 1024 once just about EVERYTHING measured storage in powers of 1024. KiB for 1000 bytes made a lot more sense as it didn't break existing usage. But now hey, no one knows which freaking convention you're using when you use KB. Gee, thanks 'standards' makers. It's like the old adage about everyone using standards - just not the same ones. Solution in search of a problem. It's not a matter of being 'out of date' as not having the same circle of experts as friends and colleagues.