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Petabyte

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Multiple-byte units
Decimal
Value Metric
1000 kB kilobyte
10002 MB megabyte
10003 GB gigabyte
10004 TB terabyte
10005 PB petabyte
10006 EB exabyte
10007 ZB zettabyte
10008 YB yottabyte
10009 RB ronnabyte
100010 QB quettabyte
Binary
Value IEC Memory
1024 KiB kibibyte KB kilobyte
10242 MiB mebibyte MB megabyte
10243 GiB gibibyte GB gigabyte
10244 TiB tebibyte TB terabyte
10245 PiB pebibyte —
10246 EiB exbibyte —
10247 ZiB zebibyte —
10248 YiB yobibyte —
—
—
Orders of magnitude of data

A petabyte (derived from the SI prefix peta- ) is a unit of information equal to one quadrillion (short scale) bytes, or 1024 terabytes. The unit symbol for the petabyte is PB. The prefix peta (P) indicates the fifth power to 1000:

  • 1 PB = 1000000000000000B = 10005 B = 1015 B = 1 million gigabytes = 1 thousand terabytes

The pebibyte (PiB), using a binary prefix, is the corresponding power of 1024, which is more than 12% greater (250 bytes = 1125899906842624bytes).

Usage examples

Examples of the use of the petabyte to describe data sizes in different fields are:

  • The world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was 281 petabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 471 petabytes in 1993, 2,200 petabytes in 2000, and 65,000 (optimally compressed) petabytes in 2007 (this is the informational equivalent to every person exchanging 6 newspapers per day).[1]
  • Computer hardware: Teradata Database 12 has a capacity of 50 petabytes of compressed data.[2][3]
  • Internet: Google processes about 24 petabytes of data per day.[4] The BBC's iPlayer is reported to use 7 petabytes of bandwidth each month.[5]
  • Telecoms: AT&T transfers about 19 petabytes of data through its networks each day. [6]
  • Images: Imgur transfers about 3 petabytes every month
  • Physics: The experiments in the Large Hadron Collider produce about 15 petabytes of data per year, which will be distributed over the LHC Computing Grid.[7]
  • Neurology: It is estimated that the human brain's ability to store memories is equivalent to about 2.5 petabytes of binary data.[8]
  • Climate science: The German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ) has a storage capacity of 60 petabytes of climate data.[9]
  • Archives: The Internet Archive contains about 5.8 petabytes of data as of December 2010.[10] It was growing at the rate of about 100 terabytes per month in March 2009.[11][12]
  • Games: World of Warcraft uses 1.3 petabytes of storage to maintain its game.[13] Steam, a digital gaming service developed by Valve, delivers over 30 petabytes of content monthly.[14]
  • Film: The 2009 movie Avatar is reported to have taken over 1 petabyte of local storage at Weta Digital for the rendering of the 3D CGI effects.[15][16]
  • In August 2011, IBM was reported to have built the largest storage array ever, with a capacity of 120 petabytes.[17]
  • In January 2012, Cray began construction of the Blue Waters Supercomputer, which will have a capacity of 500 petabytes making it the largest storage array ever if realized[18]

References

  1. ^ "The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information", Martin Hilbert and Priscila López (2011), Science (journal), 332(6025), 60-65; see also "free access to the study" and "video animation".
  2. ^ "Teradata Database 13.0 - Database Management - SQL Database". Teradata.com. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  3. ^ Paul Rubens (20 September 2004). "Thanks for memory (but I need more)". BBC News. Of course there's no such thing as a petabyte iPod, but the good news is that we may not have too long to wait for one. Hitachi Data Systems already sells a product called the TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform which can manage up to 32 petabytes of storage for the very largest corporations, so you'd have to conclude that a pocket-sized consumer version isn't out of the question in a decade or so.
  4. ^ "MapReduce". Portal.acm.org. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  5. ^ "Article". CNET UK. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
  6. ^ "AT&T- News Room". Att.com. 2008-10-23. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  7. ^ "3 October 2008 - CERN: Let the number-crunching begin: the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid celebrates first data". Interactions.org. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  8. ^ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-the-memory-capacity
  9. ^ Treehugger, 11 Dec 2009: Meet the world's most powerful weather supercomputer
  10. ^ "Internet Archive: Petabox". Archive.org. Retrieved 2011-07-16.
  11. ^ "Internet Archive Frequently Asked Questions". Archive.org. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  12. ^ Mearian, Lucas (March 19, 2009). "Internet Archive to unveil massive Wayback Machine data center". Computerworld.com. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  13. ^ Radd, David (September 18, 2009). "Blizzard Drops World of Warcraft Stat Bomb". Industrygamers.com. Retrieved 2009-09-18.
  14. ^ "Steamworks Brochure 2011" (PDF). SteamPowered.com. {{cite web}}: Text "Steamworks Brochure 2011" ignored (help)
  15. ^ Kane, Zee (January 1, 2010). "Believe it or not: Avatar takes 1 petabyte of storage space". Thenextweb.com. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  16. ^ Ericson, Jim (December 21, 2009). "Processing AVATAR". Information-management.com. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  17. ^ Simonite, Tom (25 August 2011). "IBM Builds Biggest Data Drive Ever". Technology Review. Retrieved 2011-10-18.
  18. ^ "Blue Waters petaflop supercomputer installation begins".
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