Image source: Cisco
Some say we’re now in the Terabyte Era, due to the size of today’s largest disk drives – two terabytes.
Others say we’re in the Petabyte Era (1,000x larger than a terabyte), since that’s about how much many companies now have stored in their datacenters.
Listening to IDC and EMC, one might think we’re in the Exabyte Era (1,000x larger than a petabyte). They calculate the sum of all digital data on the planet to be in the hundreds of exabytes.
Cisco seems to think that it’s the Zettabyte Era (1,000x larger than an exabyte), based on the volume of worldwide IP traffic by 2013 – over half of which will be video.
To each his own. Any way you slice it, our world is filling up with data.
By the way, it would take 500 million two terabyte Barracuda LP drives to store a zettabyte of data.
Who can tell me what comes after a zettabyte?
For extra credit, give me a reason to name an Era after it.
yottabyte
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
yotta (symbol Y) is an SI prefix in the SI (system of units) denoting 1024 or 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000.
As of 2009, yotta is the largest and last confirmed SI prefix.
Examples:
* the mass of the Earth is 5973.6 Yg (although as large mass units are based on the tonne, this would be more likely expressed as 5.97 Zt).
* the total power output of the Sun is approximately 383 YW.
* the total data storage capacity produced by humans each year is expected to surpass 1 Yottabyte (1024 bytes) by 2013.[1]
* the known universe is estimated to be 880 Ym in diameter.
Seems like somebody needs to start thinking about some new names after Yotta! Maybe we should move to an alphabetical sequence, like naming hurricanes.
yotta is after zetta
– the known universe is estimated to be 880 Ym in diameter
Yottabyte (1000xZettabytes)
That’s a yottabytes =P
The move towards complete lifestreaming in where EVERYTHING is stored for future reference moves us into the Yottabyte Era.
Digital Lifestreaming…I like it! Thanks Gerry.
After exabytes come zettabytes (270 bytes), yottabytes (280M bytes), xonabytes (290 bytes), wekabytes (2100 bytes), and vundabytes (2110 bytes). This continues through lumabytes, or 2210 bytes. No names have been locked down beyond lumabytes.