Zettabyte
| Multiple-byte units | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Orders of magnitude of data | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A zettabyte (symbol ZB, derived from the SI prefix zetta-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one sextillion (one long scale trilliard) bytes.[1][2][3][4]
As of March 2012[update], no storage system has achieved one zettabyte of information. The combined space of all computer hard drives in the world was estimated at approximately 160 exabytes in 2006.[5] This has increased rapidly however, as Seagate reported selling 330 exabytes worth of hard drives during the 2011 Fiscal Year.[6] As of 2009, the entire Internet was estimated to contain close to 500 exabytes.[7] This is a half zettabyte.
- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes = 10007 bytes = 1021 bytes
The term "zebibyte" (ZiB), using a binary prefix, is used for the corresponding power of 1024.
Comparisons for scale
A zettabyte is equal to 1 billion terabytes.
- 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).[8]
- 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.[9]
- 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."[10] A revised theory is that if you made an audio recording of the conscience and words of all humanity since the dawn of time and multiplied the data 4 times you would reach 1 ZiB.[11]
- 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.[12]
- Research from the University of California, San Diego reports that in 2008, Americans consumed 3.6 zettabytes of information.[13]
References
- ^ Zettabyte flood predicted for 2015, Tom Burton (January 2008)
- ^ A zettabyte by 2010: Corporate data grows fiftyfold in three years, Lucas Mearian (March 2007)
- ^ Study: Digital universe and its impact bigger than we thought, Lucas Mearian (March 2008)
- ^ Internet Traffic to Reach a Zettabyte by 2015, Says Study
- ^ Expanding Digital Universe IDC White Paper (pdf)
- ^ Tom's Hardware: The Average HDD is Now 590 GB in Capacity
- ^ Internet data heads for 500bn gigabytes
- ^ "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".
- ^ "Total amount of global data 2.7 zettabytes", idc.com, December 1, 2010. Retrieved on 2012-02-16.
- ^ Mark Liberman (November 3, 2003). "Zettascale Linguistics". upenn.edu. Retrieved 2007-02-17.
- ^ http://wordswithmeaning.org/2011/11/the-extraordinary-future-of-data-storage/
- ^ http://uscnews.usc.edu/science_technology/how_much_information_is_there_in_the_world.html
- ^ http://hmi.ucsd.edu/pdf/HMI_2009_ConsumerReport_Dec9_2009.pdf