Sunday, February 13, 2011

Global data storage calculated at 295 exabytes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12419672


The news article reports on the amazing amount of data that is stored in the world...it's such a huge amount that the article uses all sorts of images to help illustrate just how much data there is, which really help and make the number (295 exabytes) that much more digestible. 


295 exabytes is equal to about 1.2 billion average-sized hard drives and if the data were stored in books, the books would cover a country the size of the United States or China in 13 layers of books. 


Another note, who's even heard of an exabyte? The word exabyte itself still comes up as needing to be spell-checked. But an exabyte is a real thing and is equal to one billion bytes. Definitely hard to fathom. 


Interestingly enough, the article still makes sure to mention that in terms of the nature, our own information processing and storage capacities are much greater and much more compact than any that technology has created. "The Human DNA in one single body can store around 300 times more information than we store in all our technological devices" according to one doctor cited in the article. 


Obviously we are making huge bounds forward in terms of technological advancement, but I still think it's important to remember that we are not gods as a result of our humanly creations...in fact there's so much more contained in just one person. 

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