Let’s start with the most fundamental concepts: bits and bytes to what is after Terabyte. Bytes are used to quantify data instead of bits, which determine data rates or broadband speeds. A bit is around the size of a character, such as the letter I, whereas a byte is eight times the size, such as the word “internet.”
Megabytes (1,000,000 bytes), gigabytes (1,000 megabytes), and even terabytes are terms that most people are familiar with (1,000 gigabytes). (By the way, this byte chart shows a breakdown of all the data terms.)
As our data consumption increases, we’ll need to become more familiar with words for more significant storage capacities. So, after the terabyte, what’s next? The yottabyte (1 septillion bytes) was the most extraordinary recognized storage standard size by the System of Units as of 2018. (SI). A petabyte is 1,000 terabytes, an exabyte is 1,000 petabytes, a zettabyte is 1,000 exabytes, and a yottabyte is 1,000 zettabytes. One yottabyte is equivalent to 45 trillion 25-gigabyte Blu-ray discs.
What happens after the yottabyte, in any case?
Hellabyte and brontobyte are two possible names for the following tiers (1,000 yottabytes). According to Forbes, the hellabyte is derived from possessing “a hell of many bytes,” whereas the brontobyte is named after Brontosaurus, a giant dinosaur. There was nothing quantifiable on the hella/brontobyte scale as of 2017. However, Cisco estimates that brontobytes will be used by 2020, so we’re still a long way off.
What happens when the volume of data exceeds the scientific names that correspond to the size of the data? In 2013, Forbes addressed this issue when predicting the next layer of data: the geophyte (1,000 brontobytes).
After Terabyte: Why do we require so many different byte sizes?
We’ll generate a lot more data as computer power grows (think self-driving vehicles, smart homes, and linked cities), and our capacity to measure the data-filled environment grows. As a result, we’ll need new labels for the metrics we use to collect data.
Let’s talk about the explosion in data in a language that everyone can understand: music. Spotify claims to have 35 million songs on its service. If a 4-minute song in 320kbps stereo takes up over 20MB of space, Spotify has 70,000TB of storage. That’s quite a few bytes. Artists are also creating more music by the minute, with 40,000 new songs added to Spotify every day.
Different data types after terabyte
There are three types of big data:
- Structured
- Unstructured
- Semi-structured
- Structured
Any data that can be saved, accessed, and processed in a specified manner is classified as structured data. In a database, for example, we created a table.
Unstructured
Any information having an arbitrary shape or organization is classified as unstructured data. Consider the outcomes of a ‘Google Search.’
Semi-structured
Semi-structured data contains both sorts of information. Although semi-structured data looks to be structured, it is not. For example, data contained in an XML file.
Music isn’t the only data uploaded to the internet every day. A 3.5GB 10 minute 4K video is published to YouTube every day, and around 400,000 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every day. All of that intelligence is kept on servers in terabytes, petabytes, and exabytes. You get the picture.
Remember how bytes represent the amount of data stored and bits indicate the speed at which that data is transferred? Let’s say you wanted to share 200MB of data (about 50 iPhone photos) via your 200mbps internet connection; it would take a long time. Because bytes are eight times larger than bits, it will take eight times as long (so, okay, eight seconds).
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