Yottabyte

The yottabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix yotta indicates multiplication by the eighth power of 1000 or 10²⁴ in the International System of Units (SI), and therefore one yottabyte is one septillion (one long scale quadrillion) bytes. The unit symbol for the yottabyte is YB.

1 YB = 1000⁸bytes = 10²⁴bytes = 1000000000000000000000000bytes = 1000zettabytes = 1trillionterabytes

A related unit, the yobibyte (YiB), using a binary prefix, means 1024⁸bytes.

Examples

• In 2010, it was estimated that storing a yottabyte on terabyte-size hard drives would require one million city block size data-centers, as big as the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.^[1] If 128 GB microSDXC cards (the most compact data storage medium available to the public as of early 2014) were used instead, the total volume would be approximately 1250000 cubic meters, or the volume of half of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

• Alternatively, using recently demonstrated DNA to store media, one yottabyte would require a volume between 0.003 and 1 cubic meter, depending on number of redundant backup copies desired and the storage density. ("Our genetic code packs billions of gigabytes into a single gram").^[2] DNA is much less mature technology than microSDXC cards (for this application) and accompanied by uncertain costs, but this gives a feeling for potential information density.^[3]

• Announced by US president Barack Obama in April 2013, the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, with $100 million in initial funding, "could eventually entail yottabytes of data".^[4]

See also

• Natural computing
• DNA computing
• Yottabyte LLC-A cloud computing/data storage company

References