Hummm..Petabytes?

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1024 GB = Terabyte
1024 TB = Petabyte

The problem with making insanely large storage units (as discussed) is that you can only address them so fast, and to such a degree. Look at today's memory-addressing algorithms, and you'll find that it gets harder and harder to address data the farther you go.

Second, you'd need an insanely fast computer to handle it all.
Thirdly, you'd need an insanely fast way to access it all.

With one step up, you have to move everything else up. This is sort of like the problem people are finding with the new 64bit CPU's. We're in a 32bit world, and 64bit is just virgining. If you dropped a 1-petabyte drive into your current PC, it'd promptly vomit and die.

I don't think it'll be 10 years before we see another storage-capacity stepping point (the new CD-layering technology is right around the corner) but I do think it will be quite a while before we start passing around petabyte drives to consumers. I mean, let's see a raise of hands of people who have a terabyte of data now? No one's even reached the need (outside of the workplace) for a terabyte drive in their PC.

If we're not into terabytes yet, we're not going to be jumping right into petabytes. The technology is too expensive and the demand is too small.
 
1000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte
1000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte
1000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte
1000 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte
1000 Zettabyte = 1 Yottabyte
1000 Yottabyte = 1 Brontobyte
 
ok, so to bring that down to the layperson such as myself.. what excatly is a Brontobyte in say gigs? is it like 1 trillion gigs or somthing? that was just a very quick off the wall guess, i didn't put any thought into it,, so if i am right... ... well lets just say it.. "WHAT IN THE WORLD WOULD ANYONE NEED SPACE LIKE THAT FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" you could download the internet like 4 times.....even with duplicate files.

But in the reality aspect of it can we, as the primitive beings that we are, even grasp the concept something so large Or small depending on how you look at the situation. It gets into that whole "Infinity" arguement.. after reading an artical about a few "Super Brains" discussing "Infinity" I learned that our brains dont understand it because we always put an end to something, we can't help it....but i am rambeling and getting off topic so ill let the gibber gabber continue from someone else.
 
ok, so to bring that down to the layperson such as myself.. what excatly is a Brontobyte in say gigs?
It equals exactly...too many gigs.

1000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte
1000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte
1000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte
1000 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte
1000 Zettabyte = 1 Yottabyte
1000 Yottabyte = 1 Brontobyte
---------------------------------------
*
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 gigs.

- or more accurately:

1,152,921,504,606,846,976 gigs.
 
damn, a nice philosophical discussion in the middle of our hardware forums... i think we can use a terabyte drive in 5 years and petabyte in 15-20... think about, once the 1 gigapixel cameras start coming out and RAW image format files take up 1-2 gigs a piece and games reach 200-500 gigs with massive textures to render on 40 inch LCD monitors, which will become standard. eventually storage will become necessary, i just cant wait for internet2 to become the standard for internet traffic and such... i would love to be able to download the whole internet and have absolute instant load time on everything, and forget downloading any files cause you would have them all archived already.
 
Leonidas said:
... i would love to be able to download the whole internet and have absolute instant load time on everything, and forget downloading any files cause you would have them all archived already.

I don't like being an ass, but It wouldn't be possible to do that because you wouldn't have access to many places without proper credentials and website leechers can't spider links to pages that are not public. let's say the internet was a Zettabyte or Yottabyte in size. they might be able to cram petabytes into a hard disk, maybe.....but even with an Ultra320 SCSI interface and assuming internet2 could keep up with that pace (impossible) it would still take forever to download the internet.
 
Another problem, much of the Internet today doesn't exist until you process through it. For instance, you can't download Amazon.com, because very little of Amazon.com actually exists. You have to put in a search query, which executes the server side scripts to build you pages. Those pages never actually exist until they're used.

Not to mention that the only way to "download the Internet" would be to make a stop at every server on the planet and do a download session.

Anyway, people use terabytes right now. I've got a terabyte drive on my desk right now. The technology and usage exists...just not very widely.
 
i must commend you all for keeping this thread in a very informative and thoughtful way.....but who the hell am i right? lol....this certainly is interesting food for thought....

--jak
 
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