Jargon 2.0: Zettabyte

Zettabyte (n.)

A zettabyte refers to a volume of data equal to one sextillion bytes. That’s ten to the 21st, or 1 with 21 zeroes after it.

The Web, with increased transfers of videos and large-file data, is moving in the direction of what some call an “exaflood.” An exabyte is ten with 18 zeroes of data.

According to some sources, as of 2006 the total amount of digital data in existence was 0.161 zettabytes. The same source, at consulting firm IDC, estimates that by 2010 the rate of digital data generated worldwide will be 0.988 zettabytes per year. After that, we’ll be measuring in yottabytes (10 to the 24th).