How Much Data is That?

The information shown below uses measures only associated with data. For example, a kilo-anything is 1,000... except that when it is a kilobyte, it is 1024, an even power of two. HOW MUCH DATA IS THAT? Whenever we discuss quantities of data, we tend to do it in the abstract. We speak of a kilobyte, or a megabyte or a gigabyte without really knowing what it represents. The following table shows various quantities of bytes, in each power of ten. Usually, they are shown with multiples of 2 and 5 also. For example, 1 Kilobyte, 2 Kilobytes, 5 Kilobytes. ΒΥΤΕ (8 BITS) ONE WORD A TELEGRAM ONE CHARACTER KILOBYTE (1,024 BYTES; 2 19) approx. 1,000 or 103 WRITTEN PAGE PHOTOGRAPH, A JOKE 2 BOXES (4000) PUNCHED COMPUTER 5 BOXES (ONE CASE) PUNCHED COMPUTER (HOLLERITH) CARDS (10.000) LOW RESOLUTION (HOLLERITH) CARDS MEGABYTE (1,048,576 BYTES; 2 2º) approx. 1,000,000 or 10 CHEST X-RAY 2 ENCYCLOPEDIA VOLUMES REEL OF 9-TRACK TAPE CD-ROM SMALL NOVEL GIGABYTE (1,073,741,824 BYTES; 2 3º) approx. 1,000,000,000 or 10° LARGE ID-1 DIGITAL TAPE 50 EXABYTE TAPES BROADCAST QUALITY MOVIE TERABYTE (1,099,511,627,776 BYTES; 2 40) approx. 1,000,000,000,000 or 10 12 AA AA CONTENTS OF A LARGE MASS STORAGE SYSTEM 50,000 TREES MADE INTO PAPER PETABYTE (1,125,899, 906,842,624 BYTES; 2 50) approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 15 ALL PRINTED MATERIAL; 1995 PRODUCTION OF DIGITAL MAGNETIC TAPE 3 YEARS OF EOS DATA (2001) ΕXΑΒΥΤΕ (1,152,921,504, 606, 846,976 BYTES; 2 6º) approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 18 5 EXABYTES: ALL WORDS EVER SPOKEN BY HUMAN BEINGS ZETTABYTE (1,180, 591,620, 717,411,303,424 BYTES; 2 7º) approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 21 YOTTABYTE (1,208,925,819,614,629, 174, 706, 176 BYTES; 2 ®9) approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 24 Note: All the examples are approximate and are rounded. FOCUS Source: jamesshuggins.com, idc.com, wikipedia.com terabyte terabytes 50 terabytes 100 terabytes 200 terabytes 00 terabytes 500 gigabytes