With each passing year, another mind-bogglingly large quantity of data is presented to us as the expected total produced and 2015 is no different, with expectations that we will create one zettabyte of data this year.
Made up of 1,000 exabytes, the zettabyte is probably the coolest-sounding of the data quantities you’re likely to hear, and you will hear it a lot as time progresses.
Less than 10 years ago, it was understood that the world’s entire hard-drive capacity was somewhere in the region of 160 exabytes and, in 2009, the entire internet to that date had accumulated 500 exabytes worth of data.
And yet, just four years later, this had grown to a staggering four zettabytes, while we now face the reality of creating one in an entire year.
The topic of data creation and the rapid speed at which technology progresses is timely given that this month marked the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law, which, as many know by now, predicted that computer chips would become twice as powerful each year while rapidly decreasing in cost.
However, some are arguing that Moore’s Law is itself being outstripped by the pace of change and will be outdated by the end of the decade.
In the meantime, however, feast your eyes on this infographic released by Cisco charting how they foresee data generation will look in 2015.
Data centre image via Andrew.T@NN/Flickr
