Big Data has been the big technology buzzword for a couple of years now. So recently, as a nod to big data, the term yottabyte has become a top technology buzzword. In my upcoming paper "Smart Technology for Big Data" (for Institutional Investor Journals) this chart introduces big data.
Exhibit 1
Bytes
|
Magnitude
|
Common usage
|
Example
|
gigabyte (billion)
|
109
|
computer RAM
|
New laptops have about 8GB RAM
|
terabyte (trillion)
|
1012
|
discussing computer hard drives sizes
|
NYSE produces about
1 TB of information day
|
petabyte (quadrillion)
|
1015
|
total company storage space
|
Facebook’s largest Hadoop cluster contains 100 PB disk space
|
exabyte (quitillion)
|
1018
|
all the... in the world
|
Global internet traffic is 21 EB per month.
|
zetabyte
(sextillion)
|
1021
|
future storage discussions
|
Total size of the internet is about 1 ZB.
|
yottabyte
(septillion)
|
1024
|
speculation
|
Nearly infinite.
|
It's a favorite exhibit of those who have read the paper. Many had never heard of terms larger than a petabyte. In the article, I mention that the term yottabyte is used in "speculation". But is that speculation about to enter the realm of reality? The recent article about Twitter adding security to impede surveillance mentions that the National Security Agency's datacenter in Bluffdale, Utah is "possibly cabable" of storing a yottabyte. We're still in speculation mode but for how long? Will 2014 be the year of the Yottabyte?
