{"id":1265,"date":"2010-05-07T07:00:42","date_gmt":"2010-05-07T15:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2010-05-07T07:00:42","modified_gmt":"2010-05-07T15:00:42","slug":"data-explosion-is-the-sky-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/data-explosion-is-the-sky-falling\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Explosion: Is the Sky Falling?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The order of progression for naming data storage units goes something like this: \u00a0kilo-, mega-, giga-, tera-, peta-, exa-, zetta-, yotta-. \u00a0After the yottabyte (10008<\/sup><\/span> bytes) there isn’t an agreed upon name for the next bigger range of computer byte storage. \u00a0But at the rate at which the digital universe size is increasing, it shouldn’t be long before someone comes up with something. \u00a0Yotta. \u00a0Yotta. Yotta.<\/p>\n

IDC Research<\/a> says that the ‘Digital Universe’ is approaching 1.2 zettabytes (1296 exabytes) in size in 2010. \u00a0And that we are on target to reach 35 zettabytes by 2020 (44 times larger than in 2009). \u00a0This is the fourth year that IDC has made estimates about the size of the all digital data. \u00a0In 2009 the total data generated was 800 exabytes (800,000 petabytes<\/a>). \u00a0Up from 2008 when the number was 487 exabytes.<\/p>\n

Confused by the big numbers? \u00a0Many of the news sources reporting this new IDC information were too and have published incorrect numbers:<\/p>\n

InformationWeek <\/a>reported: \u00a0 \u00a0“in 2009, the amount of digital information has grown by 62 percent of that in 2008 to reach 800 billion Zettabytes<\/strong>“.
\nTelegraph<\/a>: \u00a0 \u00a0 “Humanity\u2019s total digital output currently stands at 8,000,000 petabytes<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

But then it is incredibly difficult to really fathom what these numbers mean. \u00a0IDC calculates the annual estimate by looking at all possible data-creating devices, which include digital cameras, mobile devices, RFID readers, medical scanners, and just about anything nowadays. \u00a0Next they multiply each type of device by the estimated amount of data that the device can store. \u00a0And then add it all up.<\/p>\n

The data growth is really a global phenomena. \u00a0The Guardian quotes Adrian McDonald from EMC, sponsor of the IDC study, that “China now has more visible devices out on the streets being used by individuals than the US does. \u00a0We are seeing the democratization and commoditization of the use and creation of information.”<\/p>\n

IDC warns that we’re soon not going to be able to keep up with the rate of digital growth. \u00a0 But the Register counters <\/a>the IDC argument and argues that storage overflow is happening as a result of a proliferation of cheap and compact storage devices. \u00a0It’s happening because of cheap storage and it’s not a problem of storage devices trying to keep up with it. \u00a0 “When storage is essentially free, it gets filled with fluff, rubbish, and digital dross. \u00a0The solution to the digital universe is the delete key.<\/em><\/span>”<\/p>\n

There’s clearly truth in both sides. \u00a0On one side there are valid drivers causing people to need to store more and more data, but I can definitely relate to the idea that if the storage is there, people will fill it.<\/div>\n
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The order of progression for naming data storage units goes something like this: \u00a0kilo-, mega-, giga-, tera-, peta-, exa-, zetta-, yotta-. \u00a0After the yottabyte (10008 bytes) there isn’t an agreed upon name for the next bigger range of computer byte…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}