Amazing memory

A heck of a deal!

 

It doesn’t seem so long ago that I heard of the first 1GB hard drives hitting the market.  They were incredibly expensive at the time and my friends and I laughed saying that there was no way anyone would ever need that much space.  Now I can buy a 1TB drive for under $150.

But exactly how much stuff can a 1TB drive hold?  And what’s next?  James S. Huggins discusses exactly that topic:

Bytes (8 bits)

• 0.1 bytes: A single yes/no decision  (actually 0.125 bytes, but I rounded)
• 1 byte: One character
• 10 bytes: One word (a word of language, not a computer word)
• 100 bytes: Telegram; two punched computer (Hollerith) cards

Kilobyte
     1,024 bytes; 2¹⁰;
     approx. 1,000 or 10³

• 1 Kilobyte: Joke; (very) short story
• 2 Kilobytes: Typewritten page
• 10 Kilobytes: Page out of an encyclopedia
• 50 Kilobytes: Image of a document page, compressed
• 100 Kilobytes: Photograph, low-resolution
• 500 Kilobytes: Five boxes, one case (10,000 of punched computer (Hollerith) cards

Megabyte
     1,048,576 bytes; 2²⁰;
     approx 1,000,000 or 10⁶

• 1 Megabyte: Small novel; 3-1/2 inch diskette
• 2 Megabytes: Photograph, high resolution
• 5 Megabytes: Complete works of Shakespeare; 30 seconds of broadcast-quality video
• 10 Megabytes: Minute of high-fidelity sound; digital chest X-ray; Box of 3-1/2 inch diskettes
• 100 Megabytes: Yard of books on a shelf; two encyclopedia volumes
• 500 Megabytes: CD-ROM

Gigabyte
     1,073,741,824 bytes; 2³⁰;
     approx 1,000,000,000 or 10⁹

• 1 Gigabyte: Paper in the bed of a pickup; symphony in high-fidelity sound; broadcast quality movie
• 2 Gigabytes: 20 yards of books on a shelf
• 20 Gigabytes: Audio collection of the works of Beethoven; five Exabyte tapes; VHS tape used to store digital data
• 50 Gigabytes: Library floor of books on shelves
• 100 Gigabytes: Library floor of academic journals on shelves

Terabyte
     1,099,511,627,776 or 2⁴⁰;
     approx. 1,000,000,000,000 or 10¹²

• 1 Terabyte: Automated tape robot; all the X-ray films in a large technological hospital; 50,000 trees made into paper and printed; daily rate of EOS (Earth Orbiting System) data (1998)
• 2 Terabytes: Academic research ligrary
• 10 Terabytes: Printed collection of the U. S. Library of Congress
• 50 Terabytes: Contents of a large mass storage system

Petabyte
     1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes or 2⁵⁰
     approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000 or 10¹⁵

• 1 Petabyte: 3 years of EOS data (2001)
• 2 Petabytes: All U. S. academic research libraries
• 20 Petabytes: 1995 production of hard-disk drives
• 200 Petabytes: All printed material; 1995 production of digital magnetic tape

Exabyte
     1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes or 2⁶⁰
     approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10¹⁸  

• 5 Exabytes: All words ever spoken by human beings.

Zettabyte
     1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bytes or 2⁷⁰
     approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10²¹
Yottabyte
     1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bytes or 2⁸⁰
     approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10²⁴