Yottabyte
Encyclopedia
The yottabyte is a unit of information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...

 or computer storage
Computer storage
Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components and recording media that retain digital data. Data storage is one of the core functions and fundamental components of computers....

 equal to one septillion (one long scale
Long and short scales
The long and short scales are two of several different large-number naming systems used throughout the world for integer powers of ten. Many countries, including most in continental Europe, use the long scale whereas most English-speaking countries use the short scale...

 quadrillion
Quadrillion
Quadrillion may mean either of the two numbers :* 1,000,000,000,000,000 – for all short scale countries; increasingly common meaning in English language usage* 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – for all...

 or 1024) byte
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the basic addressable element in many computer...

s (one quadrillion
Quadrillion
Quadrillion may mean either of the two numbers :* 1,000,000,000,000,000 – for all short scale countries; increasingly common meaning in English language usage* 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – for all...

 gigabytes).
The unit symbol for the yottabyte is YB.

As of 2011, no storage system has achieved one zettabyte
Zettabyte
A zettabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one sextillion bytes....

 of information. The combined space of all computer hard drives in the world
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....

 does not amount to even one yottabyte, but was estimated at approximately 160 exabytes in 2006. As of 2009, the entire Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 was estimated to contain close to 500 exabytes.

When used with byte multiples, the SI prefix indicates a power of 1000:
= 10008 or 1024 bytes


The term "yobibyte
Yobibyte
The yobibyte is a standards-based binary multiple of the byte, a unit of digital information storage. The yobibyte unit symbol is YiB.1 yobibyte = 280 bytes = = zebibytes...

" (YiB), using a binary prefix
Binary prefix
In computing, a binary prefix is a specifier or mnemonic that is prepended to the units of digital information, the bit and the byte, to indicate multiplication by a power of 2...

, is used for the corresponding power of 1024.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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