So much data, so little space
AP
Boston: A new study that estimates how much digital
information the world is generating (hint: a lot)
finds that for the first time, theres not enough
storage space to hold it all. Good thing we delete
some stuff.
The report, by the technology research firm IDC,
sought to account for all the ones and zeros that make
up photos, videos, e-mails, Web pages, instant
messages,
phone calls and other digital content zipping around.
The researchers also assumed that on average, each
digital file gets replicated three times.
Add it all up and IDC determined that the world
generated 161 billion gigabytes - 161 exabytes - of
digital information last year.
Oh, the equivalents! Thats like 12 stacks of books
that each reach from the Earth to the sun. Or you
might think of it as 3 million times the information
in all the books ever written, according to IDC. Youd
need more than 2 billion of the most capacious iPods
on the market to get 161 exabytes.
What they calculated
The IDC numbers included content as it was created and
as it was reproduced - for example, as a digital TV
file was made and every time it landed on a screen.
If IDC tracked original data only, its result would
have been 40 exabytes.
For one thing, said IDC analyst John Gantz, its
important to understand the effects of the factors
behind the information explosion - such as the
profusion
of surveillance cameras and regulatory rules for
corporate data retention.
In fact, the supply of data technically outstrips the
supply of places to put it.
IDC estimates that the world had 185 exabytes of
storage available last year and will have 601 exabytes
in 2010. But the amount of stuff generated is expected
to jump from 161 exabytes last year to 988 exabytes in
2010.
Two researchers, James Short and Roger Bohn of the
University of California, who were not involved in the
study said that because IDC used many of its own
internal market analyses, the work will be hard to
replicate and confirm.
Bohn said it would be wise to take IDCs figures with
a certain grain of salt, but he added: I dont think
the numbers are going to turn out to be wildly
off target.
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