There is now a unit of measure to hold nearly all the world’s digital output.
Behold: the zettabyte.
One zettabyte is equal to 1 million petabytes, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 individual bytes.
As a frame of reference, an average mp3 is about 375,000 bytes or 3 MB.
Why do we need a larger unit to measure digital output?
It takes a lot of storage to house all the world’s texts, blogs, photos, mobile phone information, tweets, Facebook posts, Web pages, cell phone numbers and all other forms of digital matter.
The world’s digital output currently stands at 8,000,000 petabytes – which each represent a million gigabytes – but is expected to pass 1.2 zettabytes this year, according to the U.K. Telegraph.
The first survey, which was conducted in 2007, estimated that the digital universe was equivalent to 161,000 petabytes.
Adrian MacDonald, vice president of EMC, the IT firm that sponsors the survey, said: “There has been mammoth growth in the types of media that make up the digital universe.”
Around 70% of the world’s digital content is generated by individuals, but it is stored by companies on content-sharing Web sites such as Flickr and YouTube.
The latest figures were released in the annual survey of the world’s digital output by IDC, the technology consultancy.
So how much content is out there?
It would take 75 billion Apple iPads to store the world’s digital content right now, reports the Telegraph.
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